


Dreams and Challenges to Sticks and Stones

by BettyHT



Category: Bonanza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 53,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BettyHT/pseuds/BettyHT
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam is married to Charity and Hoss gets romance too as the family is growing.  There are problems but none the family cannot overcome by working together.  Children are part of the story but do not dominate the story lines.  This is the second in the Adam and Charity series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams and Challenges to Sticks and Stones

Dreams and Challenges

Chapter 1

Riding back from town with the mail, Hoss almost hated the thought of handing it over to Charity. There was another one of those letters from her Aunt Julia, and every time she got one of those, she was sad afterwards. She wanted so much to fix things in her family, but there was no fixing what her aunt was and what her father had been. All she could do was look to the future in which she, her sister Virginia, and her cousin Prudence would show that it wasn't inherited. Prudence had a sister in Philadelphia. The letters they got from her showed that she was probably much like Julia, so there was no more correspondence with her. It seemed to be the best solution. Julia lamented that and blamed them for that daughter turning on her too, but it was her low station that had caused that rift. She had taught her other daughter too well. Her mother offered her nothing so she had no use for her. Prudence wanted to help her mother, but she knew that she couldn't because her mother still wasn't showing any remorse for the things she had done. Given the chance, Prudence was sure that she would try to do more if it would mean that somehow she could get more money. At least her mother was the vengeful type. Her life was centered on money and how to get it. Hoss smiled as he thought about Prudence even though she worried about her mother so much. Even those serious conversations with her made him feel good because she confided in him, she trusted him, and he hoped that meant that their relationship would continue to grow stronger. She was so busy helping Virginia with the baby though that he seldom had time to see her. He wished that she could get away from that ranch a bit more so he could spend time with her. His exceptionally busy older brother was about to offer a solution to that problem.

On the Ponderosa, Adam was in the midst of three major projects and was about to embark on a fourth that he had not anticipated. He was doing some finishing work on his house. He and Charity were living in the main house, but they wanted to move into their own home before winter which was only six months away. Whenever Adam had free time, which seemed to be rare, he was sanding, varnishing, painting, or adding some shelving or doors somewhere. Building a mill to produce shingles, siding, windows, and doors for construction was a major undertaking by itself, but Adam had also helped set up a crew to run the only mine owned by the Ponderosa. He had told Eric that he would be available to help as needed, and as the relatively inexperienced crew got to work in the mine, they often called on Adam for his guidance. The travel to the various locations, the supervision, the hands-on work, the ordering, the payroll, and the myriad other tasks left him very little time.

For all those reasons, Charity worried about him. One night as he slipped into bed, late as usual, she was waiting for him. She reached for him and rubbed his shoulders, and then as he relaxed under her massage, she continued down his back until she felt that she had helped as much as she could that way. Before he could fall asleep though, she had him roll over so that they could talk. He had other ideas but she stopped his hands from roaming.

"We need to talk, and there's no time in the day any more to do that."

"Oh-oh, have I done something wrong? If I have, I have to say that I'm sorry because the very last thing I want to do right now is to have you angry with me."

"I know that. You don't have the energy to even have an argument with me. Adam, something has to change. You're working too hard. You're pushing too hard."

Pushing himself up against the pillows, Adam sighed because he knew she was correct. Charity knew he wouldn't contest that point because it was too obviously true. She wondered what he would say though and wasn't surprised by his answer.

"I made promises. They were made in good faith to everyone, but I didn't consider the time involved when I made them. I didn't sit down and work out how much time each thing was going to require of me." Reaching for Charity's hand, Adam had a confession to make. "There's something I haven't told you yet. I didn't know how to bring it up. I have to build a large forge to make the hardware for the windows and doors we'll be making. We'll need hinges and handles and other hardware. I found that I can't order enough at a reasonable price to keep a decent profit on what we're producing. The only way to do it is to make our own. We can do it. We've got workers who can do it, but what we don't have are the facilities."

"So, there will be more construction, more correspondence, more ordering, and another payroll?"

"Yes, and frankly, I don't know how I'm going to manage it. I was going to talk to Pa and my brothers. I'm going to get overwhelmed by all of this. I'm not used to feeling this way."

"Is that why you haven't asked for help yet even though you've been struggling to keep your head above water?"

"I'm not exactly drowning yet."

"Adam, what if you get sick? What if there's a problem in any one of your projects? You haven't got a spare minute left in any day."

"I know, but I don't see a solution."

"I do."

Frowning for a moment, Adam wondered but then he guessed. "You want to work for me."

"No, I want to work with you, and I want to bring Prudence in to do some of it too. She has a very good hand as well. We could do all of the correspondence, the ordering, and the payroll. We could do the ledgers for each of the businesses. I do the same for Hiram. I prepare the papers. He looks them over, and if all is in order, he signs them and sends them off. I did the same with the bookkeeping and the payroll in the store I worked at in Philadelphia. I filled everything out, and the owner looked it over and gave the final approval. When you got home in the evening, all you would need to do was look things over and sign your name as needed."

Closing his eyes and envisioning what Charity had described, Adam could see no problem with it. Getting his father to agree was going to be a big problem though. "I like it." He knew Charity had been worried about his answer. He pulled her close then and as her head rested on his shoulder, he added his worry. "Now we have to come up with a strategy to convince Pa that it's a good idea."

"I have an idea about that too."

"Of course you do."

"You better not be mocking me, mister."

"I'm not, at least not much. I married you because I thought you were smart."

"Oh, I thought you married me because you loved me."

"Yes I did, and I love you because you're smart, and sassy, and you are the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me. I can't get enough of you. Now, is that enough? Are you going to tell me your idea now or do I have to flatter you more?"

"A little more flattery and sweet talk would be nice."

"How about this instead?" Adam gathered her in his arms and began kissing her hoping it would lead to more before he was done. He wasn't nearly as tired as he had thought he was when he first slipped into the bed. It did lead to a lot more and later as Charity rested with her head on his chest and sighed in contentment, she was ready to talk again even as his eyes were closed.

"I think we ought to tell your father that I'm going to start working with you and helping you. It will take a while for me to know what to do so when I'm ready, then we can bring Prudence into the mix."

"Did you have that on your mind the whole time that I was doing my best to show you how much I loved you and desired you?"

"No, I enjoyed all of that immensely. But now that's done so I'm back to where we were before you decided to show me how you loved me instead of telling me. That was a very good way to win that argument, by the way."

"I didn't know it was an argument."

"Discussion then. You are very good at discussing things. Now, how you discuss this with your father should be interesting. Tomorrow morning, you can tell him that I'm going to start looking over the ledgers and such. I can imagine the look on his face, but I have lots of free time tomorrow. I have all the curtains and linens done for the new house. Virginia and Prudence have helped and there's nothing left to do until we can get inside and start decorating. You said that won't probably happen for a few months yet so I have lots of free time."

"Let's talk about this in the morning. I have to sleep now."

"Say yes and you can sleep."

"Yes. And in the morning you can tell me what was in that letter from your aunt."

Adam succumbed to sleep then, but Charity's eyes were wide open for another half hour. She didn't want to tell Adam about Julia's pleas for money. She assumed that Prudence was getting similar pleas and was probably being asked for even more help. Julia had never taken care of herself in her lifetime. There had always been someone there to help her. What Charity feared is that if they didn't help her, she might find some unsavory character to help her and then she might get involved in something that would get her in serious trouble. She thought about what she would tell Adam in the morning and hoped he would understand that she thought they should send some money to Julia. If they sent her small amounts, it might be enough to keep her from getting into more serious trouble. She worried though that he wouldn't see it that way, and in the morning, she found that her worries were correct.

"I will not send one cent to her. She tried to destroy our relationship. She tried to prevent us from getting married. If she could, she would have done more than she did. If she was any smarter, we could have had some serious problems."

"She was being encouraged to do that by the Toad. He's in prison now. She's all alone."

"She deserves the situation she's in. She's lucky not to be in prison with him."

"Adam, please think about it."

"For you, I'll think about it, but don't expect me to change my mind easily. You'll need more than the arguments you've used on her behalf so far."

"I would think that you might do it for me."

"You are the only reason I'm even considering it. For now, you'll have to be satisfied that I'm keeping an open mind as to the final word on it. Perhaps we should have a discussion with Todd and Virginia and with Prudence too before a decision is made."

"Thank you. Yes, that is a good idea. I was hoping that you might think that way. I'm glad you brought that up. Now, are we ready to face your father on the other issue?"

"Yes, we'll act as if it's something that's perfectly natural. You'll talk with me about it and I'll hand over papers to you to look over today. I have some letters for you to write. I was thinking about that while I was shaving this morning. I have some orders to send and you can write those up following the pattern of the letters I sent for the lumber mill. I have a list of materials I need and you can substitute those. If you make two copies of each, then I can sign them and post them tomorrow. Tonight, I can start going over the ledgers with you and showing you how I do them. Then you can start making entries in there. I'll bring the papers for the payroll home with me on Thursday and you can work on the payroll too. Now is this too much?"

"No, it doesn't sound like too much. I can do it. If it is too much, I'll tell you and you'll have to help."

"I won't mind that at all because it will still be far less than I was doing before you agreed to help. I would have spent most of my time this week filling in the ledgers and getting the payroll done. Getting those orders out this soon will help a great deal."

Offering his arm, Adam smiled conspiratorially. He and Charity were about to begin a strategic campaign against his father. His father was quite intelligent so the surprise maneuvers that would keep him guessing were their best bet for getting things to work their way. It worked out much as they planned. Ben wondered what was up with the looks that Adam and Charity exchanged at breakfast but soon got a taste of what was to come when Adam set Charity up at the table as soon as Hop Sing cleared away the breakfast dishes. He had her drawing up letters for him and making copies. It was similar work to what she did for Hiram Wood so at first Ben didn't suspect what was to come. That night when Adam got out the ledger for the new construction and showed her how he entered everything, Ben was going to object but heard her say that it was so similar to what she had done in that store in Philadelphia where she had worked and what she did for Doctor Martin in his ledgers that she disarmed his objections. By the time she was doing the payroll, it was too late. Ben realized that she had taken over the office roles for the new manufacturing facility they were building and he had had no say in the decision. It irritated him somewhat, but those were Adam's areas of responsibility so he could hardly object too much if Adam wanted his wife to help him with that work. At least that was how he justified it to himself so he could avoid a confrontation. At least it meant that Charity gave up her work with Hiram and Paul because she no longer had enough time to do that work. Adam was relieved at that even more than the rest of the family although he never said that to his wife, but he had been concerned about her being in town without an escort. Then Charity started to put pressure on Adam to hire Prudence to help her because it was a lot of work and they needed to get the books for the mine in order too. Adam cautioned her that was going to be a trickier proposition, and they needed a more elaborate strategy.

Chapter 2

Slamming her pencil to the table, Charity sat back and exclaimed loudly. "It's hypocrisy!"

Ben Cartwright continued reading his newspaper and wisely refrained from making any comment. He saw his younger sons look at each other and return to their checkers game without giving even a glance in Charity's direction. In the months that she and Adam had been married, they had all gotten used to her and Adam having some fiery although short exchanges occasionally. All had found it best to let the two of them alone when that happened.

"What? Why is taking a census of the population a hypocrisy?"

"No, not that, but I can only check one box for occupation. I do many other things so shouldn't I be able to mark more than one box to show what I am actually doing?"

"That would seem to be sensible."

"I assisted Doctor Paul when he needed me so I could also put down nurse. In fact, Hiram sent documents to me for copying because he said that I have the neatest and most readable penmanship of all the clerks he's had. Now I do the correspondence for the new mill. I do the ledgers and billing. I prepare the payroll so I'm a bookkeeper. I should be able to mark all of those boxes. In the future, people will look at this and think that I sat at home cooking, cleaning, and doing nothing else except obeying my husband I suppose."

"I like the last part of that." Adam put up his hands in mock surrender though when he saw the smoldering look he got for that comment. "I do apologize for my flippant comment. It was insensitive. However, I can only check one box also."

"Yes, but there is no box that says something like family provider or anything like that. All of your choices have to do with your work outside of the home. Why is the top choice for women one that assumes that the woman doesn't use her mind and her education for something outside the home when we know that almost all the women out here do that?"

"It could be because the survey was created in the east where the prevailing attitude is that women should be in the home caring for the children."

"And even there, we know it isn't true. Many women work in factories and as servants as well as in all sorts of other jobs. Most families couldn't survive if the woman wasn't working. It's a snobbish question written by men who have antiquated and ignorant ideas of how society works. Why don't men with intelligence and principles run for office?" Then she remembered how a run for office had nearly wreaked havoc in the family and dropped the subject. However on the census form, she had to fill in the section of family size next and that stopped her as well. She wanted a child very much but nothing had happened for her and Adam yet. Adam saw her pause over the form, but because she said nothing, he leaned over and looked to see what had her attention. He paused briefly too and then squeezed her upper arm to get her attention and whispered to her very softly.

"It will happen."

"But when? It's been months and months. Most women would already be with child and I'm not yet. I want one so much, Adam."

"I know, and I do too, but it will happen when it's going to happen. We have to trust that it will and let it happen. Remember, you could have a big one like Hoss. You need to be ready for that. Or we could have one like Little Joe. Can you imagine our lives with a little whirlwind like that on top of all the work we already have?"

"I suppose He knows best. He probably thinks we don't have time right now. Perhaps when we have our house and not so much work to do."

"Yes, so now let's get this census form finished so we can take a walk in the evening air. We haven't had a chance to do that much lately, and I'm feeling a need for a walk with you."

"Oh, you need to walk with me. Well, then, let's get this done, because I need to walk with you too."

But Charity had that saucy grin that showed she was interested in far more than a walk. When the two of them left the house arm-in-arm, Ben and his two younger sons had a chance to talk. They had overheard enough to guess most of the rest of what had transpired in the conversation.

"Pa, we need to find a way to ease up on Adam and Charity and all the work they got to do. I was thinking that maybe we could bring Candy in to take charge of more of the work around here. Then I could help out Adam more. Joe's already got his hands full with the horses and with the changes we're making there."

"How could you help out Adam?"

"I know quite a bit about building things. As long as the plans are there, I could help a lot with the building. It would give him more time for the planning and other stuff he's got to do."

Giggling a bit, Joe had to add more. "And they need some time together. Anybody can tell that they have other plans and stuff they want to do together. They haven't had much time for that either as busy as Adam has been. Late to bed and early to rise is no way to get us a niece or a nephew, is it, Hoss?"

"Joseph, flippant comments about relations between a husband and wife are not appropriate. What happens between Adam and Charity is not any of your concern and certainly should not be part of any conversation." Except those comments Joe had made had more of an impact on Ben than Hoss' ideas had. He did wonder if Adam's workload had made it too difficult for him to have a child. He thought that perhaps finding a way to take some of the burden from him might get that grandchild he so coveted. He thought about that and then looked to Hoss. "I like your idea. I think we should talk with Adam about that at breakfast. If he agrees, we should bring up that subject with Candy, and then we could all meet with him, perhaps at dinner tomorrow evening, to discuss it."

Looking proud and rather pleased with himself, Hoss looked over at Joe who was looking a bit chagrined after his father's comments. "Ya hear that, Joe. Pa likes my idea."

Snarling a bit, Joe didn't think his father would appreciate hearing his comment that he and Hoss had been discussing that idea for some time. It would only seem like sour grapes at that point. He would let Hoss take credit for it. He was the one who had the courage to bring it up, but he hoped that Hoss would at some point let their father know that the two of them had come up with the idea together. Otherwise, he was going to have to get some revenge on Hoss for slighting him. As he thought about that, he smiled. Hoss saw that smile and got worried. He looked over to his father and had something to say.

"Hey, Pa, I meant to tell ya sooner, but that idea about promoting Candy, well, Joe and me been talking 'bout that for a while, so ya see, it was both our idea."

"Yes, well, good. Now, I need to get some work done on these ledgers."

Hoss looked over to Joe and saw that he was not fully placated. He grimaced a little knowing that he was going to pay a price for this slight. He guessed there was only one way to avoid a serious consequence. "Hey, Joe, if Adam agrees, do you want to be the one to tell Candy? He sure is gonna be tickled pink, dontcha think?"

"What? That he's going to get to do more work for the same amount of pay?"

"Huh?" Hoss looked over to their father then who was bent over the ledgers. "Pa, is Candy gonna get paid more if he has more responsibilities?"

Sitting up and leaning back in his chair, Ben thought about that. "Yes, we should probably raise his pay. In fact, we should probably raise salaries for the three of you too. Let's talk about that tomorrow morning before we talk with Candy."

Hoss looked back at Joe who was all smiles then as all thoughts of revenge disappeared. Hoss had just gotten a raise for him. He was already thinking of how he could spend it. Hoss saw that look and relaxed because all was right within the family again. He liked it best when it was like that. And with Candy taking over some of the work, Hoss guessed that he might finally get some time to go see Prudence during the week. He was tired of only seeing her on Saturday evening and on Sunday. He wanted the chance to see her more often. It was with that thought that he wished his father and Joe a good night and headed up to bed followed by Joe a short time later. Ben turned down the lamps and banked the fire. He was about to head up the stairs when Adam and Charity walked in the house.

"Adam, do you have a moment. There's something I wanted to tell you although we'll talk more about it at breakfast."

Ben could see that Adam was reluctant, but Charity told him she needed time to brush her hair and get ready for bed anyway. Adam smiled and plucked a few stray pieces of straw from her hair as she turned to walk to the stairs. Suppressing a grin, Ben watched as Adam nonchalantly walked to the fireplace and tossed the straw into the coals before turning to his father with that hint of a smile that said better than anything that he knew his father had seen everything and knew what it meant. Saying nothing about that of course, Ben got right to the business at hand.

"Your brothers have suggested that we give Candy more responsibility on the ranch. That would free Hoss to help you more. Hoss would like to be involved in the building of the mill. Are those things all right with you?" Adam nodded. "We should probably come up with a salary increase for all involved including you. Responsibilities have increased all around and that means that salaries should reflect that." Adam nodded again. "We can talk more about it at breakfast."

"That all sounds good, Pa. But if you're talking salaries, it's probably time to think about what you want to pay Charity for the work that she's doing. You can think about that so that we can talk about it at breakfast." With that, Adam turned and headed up the stairs knowing that his father was probably in shock without a thought of how to respond to what he had said. He would give him time to think that through, and he would warn his wife so that she would be diplomatic at breakfast because he wasn't at all sure how his father was going to respond to that idea.

Surprisingly, Ben was agreeable to paying Charity a salary commensurate to what she had earned working for Paul and Hiram. She was agreeable to that so it was quickly settled. Raises were agreed upon for the three sons, and then a raise was agreed for Candy if he would agree to accept more responsibility. There were some incentives that were added as well such as new quarters in the future and some expenses being paid. Joe and Hoss got to go present the proposal to him and ask him if he would join them in the future for breakfast in the morning as they would plan each day's work and the week then. Not too surprisingly, Candy enthusiastically agreed.

There was only one sobering thought that Ben made sure that all of them kept in mind. None of the changes they were making had brought any extra money into their coffers yet. They needed to keep a tight rein on expenses and the new salaries for the sons wouldn't go into effect until the profits increased. Charity's salary and Candy's raise would have to be paid regardless because they were doing extra work, but the stakeholders in the Ponderosa were going to have to wait. Joe put his dream shopping list on hold. His look told his family what he had been thinking and gave them a chuckle before they headed out for work that day. Charity and Adam were heading to town to post mail and get supplies. Hoss was going to take Candy through his new duties, and Joe had work to do with the horses. As usual, there was more than enough work to do.

In town, Charity went to post the correspondence as Adam went to order supplies. Barney Fuller approached her as she finished posting the letters that had to go out. As usual, Barney was nosy and a bit overbearing. Charity explained what she was doing in the simplest terms and hoped to escape the conversation with him as quickly as possible. Barney however was in one of those moods in which he had to poke and prod and try to start something.

"You've got a smart and talented husband. You live in a powerful family with a big ranch and more money than they know what to do with. You could live a life of comfort and ease. Now why do you have to try to be equal to men like me?"

"Mister Fuller, I don't want to be equal to you or to any man like you."

"Well, you sure act like it sometimes."

"No, I'm far more ambitious than that." With that, Charity turned and exited the store hoping to find Adam and escape any more unpleasant conversations with the likes of Barney Fuller.

In the store, Barney Fuller was at first offended especially when there was laughter at Charity's remarks. Then he shook his head as he watched her cross the street. He looked at the people standing in the store who waited for him to respond.

"Adam Cartwright snagged himself a wildcat. I wonder if he knows it yet." He laughed then as did the others in the store. "Better yet, I would pay to see the look on old Ben's face when she up and smart mouths him like that cause I know I ain't the first man felt the sting of that sharp tongue. No sirree, I bet old Ben has heard a few words from that one. Well, good to know that Adam has his hands full with her and that new mill he's building. Maybe I'll stand a chance with the next contract bid for railroad business. I'm tired of him and his old man undercutting my bids. This time I'll bid low enough to beat them out. You can bet on it."

Unseen by any in the store because they had focused on the action at the front of the store, Adam had come in the back door to meet Charity. He had heard her encounter with Barney and had heard all that Barney had said afterwards. The shop owner was going to apologize to him, but Adam put a finger over his lips to keep him quiet. He left as silently as he had arrived with none knowing he had been there. He had a plan for paying Barney back for those words. He was going to let the man punish himself. He found Charity and walked her to their wagon which was already loaded. He knew she was a bit upset but told her they would talk once they left town.

"Trust me. I know what you're going to say. I have a few things to tell you too, but not here."

On the way home, Adam explained to Charity what he planned to do and why. When he arrived home, he explained it to his father who agreed with him. For the next few weeks, Adam confided in a few close friends that the Ponderosa was desperately in need of cash and was going to bid at rock bottom prices for the next railroad contract because they absolutely had to win it. When it was time to bid, they didn't even submit a bid because they no longer had any intention of selling good Ponderosa timber for rough-cut railroad ties. Barney won the bid at a price that probably had him losing money. He was furious but had no one to blame but himself for being a fool.

Chapter 3

The next month started with very good economic news. Adam had part of the mill up and running. It was producing doors and siding. He got a contract for a large hotel in Carson City. When he came home from town after meeting with the men building the hotel, he was excited. He could hardly stop talking and ran through everything that he had learned from the corporation building the hotel that had advanced him money on the order for doors.

"Do you know how many doors there are in a hotel? This is a great start and good advertising for the type of work we can do locally. They'll save money by buying from us, and we'll make money. We can have the product there faster than they could have them shipped in from any other source too. If all goes well, we'll be making transom windows as well as doors for their next project here in Virginia City. They have other projects in the works too. They have a railroad switching station to build in the Sierras. It will be three stories and we don't even have to bid on these projects. They want a catalog or listing of what we have or can make, and they'll order from us. They're going to give me a chance to do some design work for them too. They're going to send me some ideas, and I'll get to submit a design to them. If they like it, they'll buy the design and we can produce all the products for building it as well."

After Adam handed over the receipt for the money he had deposited, Hoss and Joe crowded behind Ben to look at the amount and then whistled. Ben smiled.

"This will go a long way toward recouping our investment in that mill. A couple of checks like this, and we'll start seeing a net profit from it."

"With the money coming in from the mine now and the money from the cattle and the horses, we're doing well. As long as the cattle drive brings in at least an average return, this could be a very good year. The mill and the mine will keep operating through the winter so there will be no more pinching pennies in the winter months hoping to make it to the spring drive."

"Yes and Joe has some ideas about how to use any extra freight wagons and teams over the winter months if we don't need them here for the mill or the mine deliveries."

After Joe explained what he wanted to do, Hoss laid out his plans to do the drive with Candy as ramrod. It would be the first drive in which there would only be one Cartwright working the drive. It seemed odd, but it was how things were probably going to work in the future as they developed a multi-faceted business operation. Everything was falling into place, but Charity was quiet. Ben noted that she said very little, and after dinner, she and Adam went outside. When they came inside, they went upstairs without saying much to anyone. The next morning, Ben asked Adam if there was anything he could do to help.

"No, it's only another month."

"Adam, it will happen for you. Perhaps the two of you are still working so hard. Maybe a short break would help. We can take over for a few days and let you and Charity take a short vacation. You hardly have any time for the two of you."

"I don't know how we can do it. We need someone to do the books. You can't take over my work, keep up with yours, and do Charity's. It's too much."

"Perhaps there's someone else who can take over Charity's work for a short time."

Adam wanted to grin but held it inside. It was the opening he had been hoping to have. "Well, Charity has been asking me if she could show Prudence how to help with the books. Now that she and Hoss are getting so serious, and it looks like Prudence will be part of the family at some point, it seems that perhaps it would be all right to have her help out part-time."

Ben looked at his son wondering if he had been played but lacking any evidence that was true. "Do you have any idea if Prudence has any talent for this kind of work? We know that Charity had experience doing it, but does Prudence?"

"Not as much, but Charity could teach her. She wouldn't have to do as much though. She would mainly be making entries to keep track of things. There would be no correspondence, no orders. Charity and I do all of those, and we do the payroll too. But there are lots of records to be kept and it's time consuming to write it all down."

A bit suspicious about that sudden turn in the conversation, Ben wondered how much was going on that he had not known about. "What does Hoss think about this?"

Clever enough to avoid that trap, Adam was evasive. "We should ask him. I'm fairly certain he would like the idea. It would mean that Prudence would be here every day. He would hardly be likely to object to that."

"We couldn't pay her much."

"I don't think that would be a problem. She gets paid nothing for what she does for Todd and Virginia, and she could continue to do that for the room and board she gets there."

Outmaneuvered at every turn, Ben could only concede on every point. He did want to see Adam and Charity take some time away, and if this was how it would work, then he was willing to take a chance on Prudence. "It's a trial run though. When you and Charity return, we'll evaluate how things worked, and then we'll make a final decision based on that."

"Yes, Pa. That sounds about right."

So that evening, Ben told Hoss and Joe that he got Adam to agree to take some time off and spend a short vacation in Carson City with Charity.

"How did you get the old granite head to do that? I never thought he would ever agree to take a break until that mill was completely done."

"Joe, give your father some credit. I knew how to appeal to my oldest son. I used logic and common sense to get him to see things my way. He and Charity need some time away. You saw how unhappy she was this morning. Well, it's time for them to spend some time together."

Hoss was happy with the solution, but not nearly as happy as Charity. She asked Adam how he had managed to get some time away when there was so much work to do and she was especially surprised that Prudence was going to be able to work with her. "How did you get your father to agree to letting Prudence work with me, and get a short vacation for us as well?"

"I appealed to his common sense and his logic. Your looking so downcast this morning helped too. Why did you look that way?"

"I saw the stack of paperwork that I had to do today. It made my head hurt to think about it."

"Pa interpreted it as something else, but that's all right. It helped the solution. He thought it was because you aren't with child yet."

"But I might be. You didn't tell him I was late, did you?"

"No, you're not that late. We can't be sure yet."

"No, but I've not been this late before so it could be."

"We'll keep it as our secret until we're sure. Now get packing what we need for a short vacation in Carson City. I want to take you to dinner and then spend some quality time together without any work and without any talk about work."

"You don't feel guilty at all about taking this vacation under false pretenses."

"No, I don't. We need this time away, and if our special secret turns out to be true, they're going to be very happy for us. If it isn't true, then perhaps this small vacation can make it come true next month. Either way it's a winning proposition."

"I'll have to spend today showing Prudence how to do the entries."

"That's fine. An early evening ride to Carson City, a bath together, dinner in the room, and who knows what might happen."

"Oh, I think you know exactly what will happen and you're counting on it too. Now if you want that, you need to go over to talk to Prudence and get her to ride over here in their carriage so she can get home. I'm sure Hoss will be willing to escort her home. I'll have our things packed by the time you get back. Then I'll spend the day getting Prudence ready to handle things while we're gone. I'm assuming that you'll be doing the same with Hoss and your father?"

"I will, and Charity, you won't need to pack more than one gown. You'll hardly be needing that one." With a cheeky grin, Adam leaned down to kiss her quickly before he left the room but not before she slapped his behind as he turned to leave. She stood with her hand on her hip. He grinned again as he saw that when he looked back. The thought of having some time away from work and worry had already rejuvenated him, and Charity realized that his father might be correct. Perhaps it was the stress and the worry that was making it difficult for them to conceive a child. She decided then that she needed to make more of an effort to find time for the two of them to relax and enjoy life despite how ambitious they were. It was going to be a challenge. She smiled at the incongruity of the problem. She was going to have to work to give them time to relax. Shrugging, she knew it was how they were going to have to be for the foreseeable future.

Someone who looked forward to being busier, Prudence was thrilled that the idea that Charity had broached to her some time earlier had finally come true. As soon as she could, she was dressed for the ride to the Ponderosa and was merrily driving the carriage with Adam riding along beside her. As soon as she was in the yard at the ranch, Hoss was there to escort her inside. Then as Charity and Prudence bent their heads over the books with receipts and bills stacked next to them, Adam sat down with Hoss and their father to discuss what needed to be done at the mill in his absence. Things were going rather smoothly this far into the process, but every day they would need to check on the progress with the various work crews and see that the plans and the work was being done according to orders Adam had written out. He wasn't going to be gone for long so there were few worries about that. By late afternoon, Adam felt comfortable in leaving things in Hoss' hands with his father as back-up, and Charity pronounced that Prudence could handle anything needed for the bookwork.

Once Adam and Charity left, Hoss startled his father and Prudence with a request. "While Adam and Charity are gone, maybe Miss Prudence should stay here instead of making that trip by herself every day. She could stay in the guest room down here and then she could do the work right there at the table and keep the paperwork right there in that room when she wasn't working. It's only for five days. Sunday evening after we all have dinner, I could escort her home. Adam and Charity will be back by then."

By Monday morning, Adam was feeling rejuvenated in many ways, but Charity was tired from her vacation. She was still 'late' so she and Adam were hopeful that they would soon have good news to share. Hoss had spent five days getting to know Prudence better and had come to a decision. He meant to talk to Adam about ordering a ring and how to do that to get the right size without her knowing she was getting a ring. Ben was pleased with how smoothly things were going, and then the bad news arrived. Joe came home from town with the mail on Wednesday and two items of news. The first wasn't too bad.

"Toad died in prison. I saw Roy and he told me. Said he had been hazed so much by the other prisoners that his heart must have given out. He died about a month ago."

"Why are we only hearing about it now?"

"Apparently it wasn't much news until the reading of the will in Carson City on Monday morning. You can guess who his heir is considering that he had no children and no known relatives."

As Ben and Hoss thought about it, Adam and Charity got a sneaking and horrifying suspicion. Seeing Joe looking at them, they knew it had to be true. Almost in unison, they asked Joe if it was Julia, and he told them it was.

"Yes, he left the whole of everything he owned to her. He left a sealed letter for her too. She has to read the letter and then she gets everything."

Frowning, Hoss looked around at the others who were frowning as well. "What do you suppose is in that letter?"

"Son, it can't be good news for us. And if Julia is coming back here, that's bad news too."

Chapter 4

When Prudence arrived the next day on the Ponderosa, Adam and Charity had some questions for her. She admitted that she had sent some money to her mother.

"She begged me for help. She said she didn't have enough to pay the rent on her place for this month and needed extra. I don't have many expenses so I sent her some. I guess it was all a lie. Now I think she wanted that money to come here to hear the will being read. Well she won't be asking me for money any more. That awful man left her plenty of money if the story we heard is true. I wonder if she'll even bother to come over here to say hello to me."

Wishing that Julia would go away forever, Adam couldn't bring himself to say that to Prudence. Julia was an awful woman, but she was her mother. Hoss was there looking sad for the pain that Prudence was facing. Adam suggested that the two of them ought to get to work and let the two ladies spend the day together talking and working. It didn't take long for the ladies to find topics to discuss.

"Charity, do you like being married to Adam?"

Surprised at that question, Charity put down her pencil and stared at Prudence who looked at her innocently letting Charity know that there was no malice in the question. "Yes, I adore being married to Adam. I no longer can think of living any other way even though we have only been married less than a year. It seems like it is the most natural way for me to live my life. Why do you ask?"

"I think Hoss is going to ask me to marry him. He's been saying things that kind of hint at that without coming right out and saying it. I'm scared of saying that I will spend my life with him. How do you know that you can trust someone so much with the rest of your life? And you know, with other things? I've never been with a man before, and Hoss and I have only kissed. I'm worried about what will happen when we get married. He's a very big man."

Sliding her chair closer to Prudence so that she could whisper and not be overheard, Charity decided to confide in her cousin in order to reassure her. "You can never tell anyone, not even Hoss, anything about what I'm going to say. Adam is a very private person. But I can tell you that even very strong men can be very gentle while they are being passionate. They can take their time and make sure that they don't hurt the woman they love. I mean, there is going to be some discomfort until you get used to it, but it will be of little consequence in comparison to the feelings that you'll have when you join with your husband. You'll forget all about that little discomfort when the feelings of pleasure wash over you."

"It's really that good? Mother always made it sound as if it was something that she had to do and not something that any woman wanted to do. She never seemed to have minded so much that she didn't have a husband any more except that there was no one there to provide an income."

"If you love the one you're with, you want to and then it's wonderful. Sometimes it's so strong you want to hang onto him and never let him go, and other times it's gentle and warm and you settle in and want to snuggle in his arms and let him love you like that forever."

"But how did you trust him enough to marry him in the first place? That's what I'm struggling with now."

"Whenever I needed him, he was there. Whenever I saw him, I felt better. When he wasn't there, I felt like something was missing from my life. I knew that if ever I needed him, he would be there, and if ever I asked something of him, he would do his best to do that for me. He would always do his best. What is trust but knowing that? Isn't that true of Hoss for you too?"

Prudence thought for a short time, and slowly a smile grew until she looked at Charity. "My fear is fear of doing something that's unknown. That's all it is, isn't it? I do trust Hoss. I love him too. If he asks me, I'm going to say yes. You've helped me a lot."

"Now I have one more bit of advice for you. You told me all of this. You have to tell Hoss too."

"Oh, no, I couldn't tell Hoss. It would upset him."

"No, it won't. You say you trust him. Well, he needs to trust you too, and one of those things is that he needs to trust that you will tell him the truth even if it's difficult to say and perhaps difficult to hear sometimes. He needs to know how you're feeling and how you're thinking. Don't make him guess. That's not fair."

"Did you tell Adam how you were feeling?"

"Yes and no. I told him some of it, but he guessed a lot without me telling him."

"How did he react?"

"He was very gentle and patient with me. That helped a lot. It didn't take long for me to get over those fears, but he understood, and Hoss will too. You need to give him the chance to be understanding and patient by letting him know how you feel."

"Thank you. I don't have a mother who I can talk to about things like this, and when I tried to talk to Virginia about things, well, she was very embarrassed and didn't really want to talk about it."

"You can always talk to me, but I think that once you're married to Hoss, you won't need to talk to me. You'll be able to talk with Hoss about things."

"I hope so. It's lonely not having someone to talk to about things, well about lots of things, not just that, well, you know what I mean."

Prudence turned pink then and Charity had to chuckle. At his desk, Ben had been aware of the two of them whispering away and could guess at the topics. He stayed at his work and let them have their privacy. Ben had noticed Adam being especially attentive to Charity. He hoped it meant that there was going to be some special news soon. He knew the two of them hoped very much for a baby, and although they sometimes joked about the wait, it had to be gnawing at them. It would be good for them to know, and he was looking forward to the news as well. He also expected Hoss to have an announcement soon. He had thought it would have already occurred but Hoss was taking his time as he did on many things. Ben could only hope that Adam was counseling him and encouraging him. That would likely speed things up. That was happening too as Adam had already pushed Hoss to get the ring ordered and had given him some ideas about how to make the proposal. Now it was up to Hoss to set the stage and finally ask the question. Adam gave him one last piece of advice that morning.

"If you don't ask her soon, everyone is going to know you're getting married before you know it. It will take a lot of the excitement out of the announcement."

"Huh? Oh, cause everyone is gonna figure it out so they'll be expecting it?" Adam rolled his eyes as if that wasn't even necessary to state. "Well, I was thinking of asking her this weekend. Is that soon enough?"

"It is. Have you alerted Hop Sing like I told you to do?"

"Dadburnit, I knew I forgot something."

"Well do that tonight and offer to pay him extra and pay a cousin if he needs any extra help. He'll like that well enough that you won't have to put up with much complaining. I made sure that there's champagne for the toasts when you tell everyone so that's all set. Did you pick up the ring you ordered?"

"It's going to be ready on Friday. I'll get it then."

With a grin, Adam stopped and took a good look at Hoss. "You're going to be so happy."

"I shur hope so."

"You will be. Let's hope we can keep her mother from being a problem about the wedding."

"Do you think she will be?"

"She's a problem about everything. I wish I could say she isn't but we know that's not true, but I wish I could say I knew what she was likely to do. She's unpredictable."

"That's a worry."

"It is. Now that she has money, maybe she will be less of a problem though. She doesn't have to try to get her hands on Ponderosa money because she has her own."

"I know, but I got a bad feeling in my gut about all of that."

"So do I. I wish I knew what was in that letter she got from Mann."

In Carson City, Julia was meeting with the lawyers and getting that sealed letter. She was given privacy and a chance to read it. She read it, and after getting over the shock, she smiled and nodded to herself. She wouldn't mind doing what he asked of her. As he pointed out in the letter, she had enough money now to accomplish the task without getting her hands dirty, and he had even provided contacts for her. She could meet with those people and make the arrangements. It would cost her some of her newfound wealth to pay men to carry out the assignment but not too much. Then she could let events move forward and enjoy the rest of her wealth. She planned to move back to Philadelphia and live the life of a woman of leisure. She could do that now and live off the investments she had inherited. She wondered at the warning in the letter that said there was someone watching to be sure she completed her assignment. She wasn't sure that was true, but she suspected it might be. She didn't object to the assignment though so it wasn't going to be an issue for her. She called to the lawyers to tell them she had read the letter. The rest of the meeting was to officially sign over Mann's wealth to her. She walked out of the lawyers' office and headed to the finest hotel in town and took one of their finest rooms. She planned to do some shopping the next day. She had some men to meet, some arrangements to make, and then she was going to go see her ungrateful daughter and let her know that she was leaving her here in the west and going back to Philadelphia.

Two days later, three men met with her in her hotel room. They were reasonably well dressed, but they were obviously also very dangerous men. She was nervous around them but explained what they had to do. They found the task odd, but her offer was too good to ignore. She paid them half up front and told them where to meet her to receive the other half of the payment.

"I'll be back here in a week. By then, it should be done. They should be drying out there in the desert just as Mann wanted. If you have accomplished that, you get the other ten thousand dollars."

"How will you know we did it?"

"If you do it, it will be news. No Cartwright disappears without it being news. If he disappears without a trace, then I know you followed your instructions. They'll know something bad happened because of the note, but they won't have any idea of where to look."

"And we don't actually have to kill him? We leave him to die?"

"Yes, him and the other one that Mann wants dead for what they did to him. Leave them to die in the desert according to the instructions I gave you. That's what Mann wanted. Eventually they will be found but by then, there won't be much to find."

Two days later, three men met with her in her hotel room. They were reasonably well dressed, but they were obviously also very dangerous men. She was nervous around them but explained what they had to do. They found the task odd, but her offer was too good to ignore. She paid them half up front and told them where to meet her to receive the other half of the payment.

"I'll be back here in a week. By then, it should be done. They should be drying out there in the desert just as Mann wanted. If you have accomplished that, you get the other ten thousand dollars."

"How will you know we did it?"

"If you do it, it will be news. No Cartwright disappears without it being news. If he disappears without a trace, then I know you followed your instructions. They'll know something bad happened because of the note, but they won't have any idea of where to look."

"And we don't actually have to kill him? We leave him to die?"

"Yes, him and the other one that Mann wants dead for what they did to him. Leave them to die in the desert according to the instructions I gave you. That's what Mann wanted. Eventually they will be found but by then, there won't be much to find."

"When do we do this?"

"As soon as possible. I want to show up after they're missing so that it's clear that I wasn't present when it happened. I will simply gloat over my good fortune and their bad. Then I will take my leave to come back here and await your return."

The men went to Virginia City that day and got to work. At the end of the day, a note was delivered to the Ponderosa. It was relayed to Adam at the mill where he and Hoss were working. Hoss headed to town to pick up the ring he intended to give Prudence that weekend, and Adam headed to the mine to find out what kind of trouble Eric was having that needed his attention on a Friday. He was surprised by the request, but he honored it because he had promised Eric that he could always call on him if he needed advice or help.

That evening when it was time for dinner, Adam had not returned. Hoss said he had gotten a note from Eric. No one worried too much assuming that the two had their heads together working out some problem at the mine. However when one of Eric's friends arrived because Eric's wife was worried that he didn't come home for dinner, concern rose exponentially with each bit of information.

"No one's at the mine. I checked. We finished up on time today with no problems."

"But Eric sent a note to Adam asking him to stop by."

"No, I don't think so, Mister Cartwright. Eric was getting ready to lock up the office when I left. He wouldn't have been locking the door if he was expecting Adam to be there."

Suddenly the whole Cartwright family got a cold chill. Toad dying, Julia arriving, and now this had to be connected. They weren't sure how, but it was ominous. Ben looked at the man who was also looking worried.

"Tell Sheriff Coffee what you told us. Joe, will you go with him and explain things from our end? Hoss, do you think you could find anything this late?"

"No, Pa, but I know where Adam was exactly when he rode off so I know where to start looking. We'll be there at first light."

Ben turned to Charity and wrapped an arm around her as she stood in near shock not knowing what to say or do. "We'll find him. He'll be fine. You know how strong and resourceful he is."

Many miles away, however, Adam was shivering in the night air as his horse was led along a desert trail. They had been traveling nearly nonstop since he had been taken at gunpoint. Eric rode beside him in nearly the same state. The only stop had been to toss a bundle over a steep cliff. It contained their weapons as well as their shirts, hats, and boots. Their captors had made sure that it was going to be very difficult for them to fight back or run away. It was also very cold riding in the night air. Apparently their comfort meant nothing which led Adam to believe they weren't meant to survive this ordeal, but then he wondered why they had not been killed outright. No answers were forthcoming from the three men though who said almost nothing as they forced them to keep moving on further into the desert.

Chapter 5

In a moment of privacy as the men let Adam and Eric relieve themselves at the side of the trail, Eric whispered. "Adam, what do you think they're going to do to us?"

"If I had one guess, they mean to strand us in the desert. Why is the big question. If they were going to shoot us or kill us outright, they've had quite a few chances already. They took our boots and guns which made sense if they were going to make us less likely to be able to escape, but taking our shirts and hats makes no sense unless they want us exposed to the elements."

Even though they weren't worried about the two men escaping, the three men didn't want them plotting either. Hearing them whisper was enough. They ordered them back to the horses, tied their wrists again, and had them up on the horses quickly and back on the trail. In this relatively flat terrain, they could travel at night if they went slowly. Adam was getting some blisters on his ankles and feet from the stirrups rubbing against skin normally protected by his boots. He tried to keep his toes pressed against the stirrup but found that he was getting too tired to maintain the pressure. The result was some painful blisters that broke and bled. He guessed he was going to be far more uncomfortable than that if these men carried out whatever plan they had for him and Eric. He was curious too though to know who had ordered it. He didn't know these men and they seemed to have no personal animosity toward him or toward Eric so they were hired help. He hoped at some point to find out who had hired them and why. He also was trying to come up with a plan to free them from their captors, but so far, he had nothing. As dawn broke, the men forced them to pick up the pace. They moved rapidly for several hours especially when they saw some freight wagons in the distance. The men with them told them that if they did anything to attract attention, they would be shot immediately. They didn't dare do anything, but they did hope that the drivers noticed them and might tell someone at some point. It might be their only chance at a rescue. They traveled for several more hours until they reached a very desolate spot. Then they were ordered from their horses.

"All right, move on out over there." One of their captors pointed to a spot not unlike every other spot around them.

"Why?" Adam wanted to know what was expected of them.

"For now, we have the guns so you just follow orders. Move."

One of the men moved to the packhorse and pulled out two shovels. He carried them and followed the other two men who leveled guns on Adam and Eric and forced them to move out into the sandy terrain.

"Now, start digging. We want a nice big hole by tonight."

"We can't do much with our wrists tied." Adam held up his wrists that were abraded and bleeding from the ropes chafing for over twelve hours already. He got no sympathy but did have a point. The ropes were removed by the man who had brought the shovels. Then as one man guarded them, the other two went back to care for the horses and prepare a meal. None of that was shared with Adam and Eric though, and they got no water either reinforcing Adam's belief that they were meant to die at the end of whatever the plan was. He wished he knew what the plan was however.

Many miles away, Hoss was frustrated. He had followed Adam's tracks to where he had been abducted and then to a public road. From that point on however, he had nothing. Splitting up the searchers, they were looking in every possible direction for some indication that they had left the road and gone some other way. They never found any indication of that. They searched all day and found no trace of where Adam had been taken. By the end of the day when Hoss met up with his father's search group, he had only one idea left.

"Pa, we need to bring in some Paiute trackers. If anybody can find a sign of where he went, they might. I only hope we ain't messed that up with all the riding around we did today trying to find something."

"That will take so much more time."

"Pa, we got to do something. Unless Joe gets back here with better news, we got nothing else."

"All right, I'll ride to town to see what Roy may have found out. If I see Joe, I'll let him know what you're doing. Send the men home to get a good meal. Will you ride to the Paiute camp now?"

"I'll get started. I won't get all the way there before it's dark, but I'll be there early tomorrow. How much can I promise as a reward if they find him, Pa?"

"Whatever you have to, Hoss. Whatever it takes to get the help we need."

As Ben rode to town, he met up with Joe and gave him the unenviable task of having to tell Charity that they had found no trace of Adam. He did tell Joe to tell her what Hoss was planning, and that he was going to town to see if there was any news there. When he got to town, he saw Barney Fuller first. It was one of the last people he wanted to see, but Barney hailed him and refused to be ignored which was Barney's usual way.

"Barney, I have urgent business."

"I heard, but I have something that might help with that."

About to brush Barney off, that got Ben's attention. Barney knew it would. He had to jab Ben a little first though.

"Now I had a run-in with your daughter-in-law. She's got a sharp tongue on her, that one. But, Adam has always been reasonably respectful so I figure I owe him this much especially as he has to put up with that wife of his."

Clearly frustrated, Ben fumed. "Barney, what have you got to say that I need to know?"

"Well some of my freight haulers were coming back from Reno. They took a side trip to bring some stuff over to the folks who took over the old Wilson Station. When they were leaving there, they saw five men riding out into the desert. It looked like Adam was with them. Now that wasn't what grabbed their attention and made them tell me."

"Well, Barney, that is important information all by itself, but what did grab their attention and make them tell you what else?"

"Adam was shirtless, hatless, and wasn't wearing his boots. Now that is an odd way to see the oldest son of the Ponderosa riding in any circumstances."

"Shirtless, hatless, and without his boots? That's very odd. Who was he with?"

"Several other men. My men didn't know any of the others. One man looked familiar to them. He didn't have a shirt or hat or boots either. The other three men they didn't know. They told me a short time ago. I was about to go tell Sheriff Coffee because I heard your son was missing. It's not a big stretch of the imagination to think that this is related."

"Thank you, Barney. Despite everything we've done to each other in business, this is a good thing you've done. I won't forget it."

"It's all right, Ben. That other stuff was never personal."

"Which direction from Wilson Station were they going?"

"Generally northeast. They weren't paying close attention. They only thought it was odd at the time. If they had known more, they would have done something about it."

With another thank you, Ben hurried to Roy's office with that information. Roy had nothing more to offer but now had something to check out. He headed to the livery stables to see about men who might have had horses there or rented out any horses. He and Ben got information at the second one they checked where they found that three men had bought a pack horse. They followed that lead to the general store where they found the men had purchased food, a pot, canteens, and two shovels. That last part seemed especially ominous with the rest that they knew. Even though it was getting close to dusk, Ben headed to the ranch to inform his family and hands of what they had learned. Roy was going to have a posse formed, and they expected Hoss back with trackers in the morning as well. The search area had gotten quite a bit smaller too. Hoss was going to be back even earlier than expected because in the dusk and early evening, he pushed on and encountered some Paiute before it got too dark to see where he was going. He explained what he needed and got their agreement to help. They waited only for enough light to travel in the morning. A full-scale rescue was underway.

"Will it be soon enough?"

Charity's plaintive question when Ben told her of the plans he had made with Roy in town and then explained to her and Joe shook him and Joe. It was the great fear neither of them could face but one she couldn't shake. None of them knew if Adam was even alive at this point. He was but things were getting desperate by that evening. He knew it as did Eric. They suspected that they weren't going to survive the next morning by the comments made by the men. They had spent the day digging but without food and mostly because they had no water, they were getting very weak. In the hole, Adam whispered to Eric.

"If they get us out of here, we need to use these shovels to our advantage."

"Against rifles and pistols?"

"The other choice is to let them kill us. You heard what they said. They're going to burn our feet and let us in this hole. Unless we're found fast, we won't make it. Men can only survive a couple of days without water out here. We've already used one of those. We can barely stand now. We have to act as if we can't do much of anything. Start staggering and acting as if you can't even lift another shovel of sand out of here. Over the next few minutes, we have to convince them that we've reached our limit."

"And then what?"

"And then they'll move on to the next part of their plan, and we'll have to make our move. It may be the only chance we have."

Having trusted Adam before when things had worked out well, Eric was already conditioned to trust his advice. He nodded. They whispered no more but began bumping into each other, dropping to one knee and having trouble regaining their feet, and when lifting a shovel of sand finding that more poured from it than got tossed from the hole. As they continued, those actions were more and more exaggerated until the man guarding them at that time decided that the plan had worked. He yelled to his partners.

"Hey, Axil, it looks like they're about done in. It's probably time to have them crawl out of there before we have to haul them out."

"That bad?"

"Yeah, it's been kind of fun watching them for the last half hour or so. It's like a pair of clowns down there banging into each other and not getting much of anything done."

The other two men walked up beside the first and watched Adam and Eric seemingly in a daze from dehydration and heat exhaustion. After another five minutes of watching, they all agreed that it was time. Axil ordered one of the men to go heat up the branding iron they had brought with them.

"Lew, stick it in that fire and get it real hot. I don't want to have to do this over again. Once is gonna be bad enough. This is the worst part of what she told us to do. For what she's paying us, we'll do it, but it's a sick thing."

Axil yelled down to Adam and Eric to climb out of the hole they had dug. It took several attempts to get their attention and get them to understand what he wanted. They used their shovels to help them make the climb. Axil and Rowdy were just as glad not to have to touch them to help them out. Adam and Eric took their time waiting for Lew to rejoin his friends before they stood and swung their shovels in a desperate effort to disarm their captors. A frantic fight for control ensued with shots fired and blows struck until the three men were battered, bleeding, and subdued. Adam held a rifle in his hands as did Eric, but it was Adam giving the orders.

"Take off your boots and your shirts now!" The three men did as they were told. "Throw them in the hole." They did that as well. "Now lay face down and put your hands behind your back. Any trouble and I'll put a bullet in your brain. I don't have time to do anything else at this point."

Once the three men had their wrists tied, Adam had Eric tie their ankles as well.

"We can leave them here. I'm sure that they can be retrieved before anything too terrible happens to them, but if not, well, they brought it on themselves."

"Adam, we have to do something about the bleeding."

"I know. Go look to see if they have any clean cloth on that packhorse. A clean shirt will do. I wish that they had boots that fit, but clean shirts or a nice blanket would be good." With that Adam dropped to his knees and then to his side. Eric was beside him in a moment to ease him onto his back. Then he rushed to the packhorse to see what was there to use. The wound wasn't too serious if they were in town, but out here, he was worried about the bleeding especially as weak as Adam already was. He did the best he could but succumbed to exhaustion too in the middle of the night.

Chapter 6

A few buzzards circling helped the Paiute trackers and Hoss zero in on the location of Adam and Eric. Both men were nearly delirious with heat exhaustion from their ordeal and Adam had the additional blood loss and pain. They had the canteens of water and had been sipping the water but it wasn't enough to recover. They needed assistance. Hoss wanted to send a man to the station to see about getting a wagon but suspected that a Paiute might not receive a friendly welcome there. Instead, he fired off three shots hoping that a search party might be close enough to hear not realizing that his father and Sheriff Coffee had converged on the area and were waiting for some sign even as they looked for tracks. Hoss was greatly relieved to see the men ride up a short time later.

"Pa, Joe, they're alive but in tough shape. Adam's been shot in the side. It ain't bad. He musta been fighting over a gun with somebody cause there's powder burns on his side too. That actually helped cause the wound closed up, but he's already got a fever. Could be from what he went through but it could be an infection. He needs a doc."

"What about those three?"

"Must be the ones who done it to them. We ain't paid no attention to them, but if Eric and Adam done tied 'em up, they had a good reason to do it."

"I'll send a man to the station for a wagon. Joe, could you ride for Doctor Martin and have him meet us at the ranch?"

"That's what I wanted. Now we gotta get Adam and Eric cooled down. You got plenty of water with you?"

"We do, and we'll use whatever we have."

Both Adam and Eric roused a bit with the care they received. The three men who had taken them captive were begging for water and for their clothing. Adam smiled grimly and whispered to his father who had to lean down close to his mouth to hear him. Ben leaned back then and nodded before walking over to Roy.

"Roy, don't give them any water or anything else until they pay for it."

"Ben, how they gonna pay for it? I don't think anybody ought to have to pay for water out here in the desert."

"Roy, they didn't give Adam and Eric any water for a full day. Now, they can wait for water at least that long and perhaps longer unless they want to tell us who gave them the orders to do this thing. It could go easier with the judge too, don't you think, if they showed remorse and confessed?"

"Well, now, Ben, you got a point there. These men surely could show some good faith by telling us who give 'em these orders and by confessing everything. The judge surely would take than into consideration. They didn't kill nobody, and it could give 'em a lot shorter time locked up."

"How long is the sentence for kidnapping and attempted murder?"

"Judge could give 'em twenty years or more."

"But if they cooperated, what could happen?"

"Well, now it could be charged as assault. That could get them a year or two if the judge was told that they was willing to cooperate and was remorseful."

"Most young men can handle a year or two, but twenty years, and your life is over before you're done."

"It sure is. I've seen men get out after twenty years. Sometimes they're only forty or so years old, and they look like sixty or more. Can't get a decent job. Can't get a gal. Swamping out a saloon, begging for drinks and food, and such is about all they got to look forward to. It's a sad thing. It's almost better to get the gallows. You die quick that way and not so slowly."

Lew tried to roll over. "I'll talk. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"You fool. That's what they wanted. They were only trying to scare you." Axil tried to get him to stop.

"I don't care. What they said made sense. I don't owe her anything, and neither do you. We already got money in the bank. We serve our year or two and move on. It was all her doing. Let her serve the twenty years."

Anyone listening who knew the family well had a fairly good idea who the 'her' was going to be. Rowdy agreed with Lew and said he would also talk. Axil gave in then and also agreed to confess. Roy had one of the men remove the ropes on their ankles and let the men sit up to tell their tale. Roy had the men in the posse tend to the horses and the gear. He and Ben sat with Hoss and Clem as they listened to the three tell the whole story. Ben and Hoss continued to tend to Adam and Eric who listened as well as they could.

At some point, Adam slipped away into much needed sleep in his father's arms with a blanket wrapped around him. When the wagon arrived, Hoss helped Ben lift him into it without waking him. Then Eric was helped onto a horse. Roy took the three criminals to town. Clem and a few men took Eric home. The Paiute, who had waited patiently, rode with Hoss and his father who accompanied the wagon to the Ponderosa. As they reached the Ponderosa, Hoss told the Paiute to cut out twenty head of cattle to drive up to their camp. The men nodded their thanks and left. At the ranch, Charity came running toward the wagon as soon as she saw it. Ben had the driver stop so that she could climb in the back with Adam and then they proceeded up to the house. Charity bent her head down beside Adam who was awake.

"You shouldn't run in your condition."

"I'm fine. You don't look so good though."

"I'm fine. I need to get cleaned up, and I need lots of tender loving care and some time in bed."

"Is that all you ever think about?"

"I mean to sleep although that afterwards would be wonderful."

"Are you hurt?"

"I got shot. Don't look so scared. It's not too bad. Even Hoss said that. My wrists and my ankles have some sores. Other than that, maybe a few bruises, but otherwise, I'm perfectly fine."

"Oh besides the sunburn and the fever you have?"

"Oh, yeah, there is that too."

"How's Eric?"

"Better than I am. He's heading home. Charity, you know who had this done, don't you?"

"I didn't, but by the way you asked the question, I think I do now. It was Julia, wasn't it?"

"Yes, she plans to show up in town today or tomorrow to gloat over you in your sorrow, and show off her wealth to her daughter. Then she plans to leave in triumph to go back to Philadelphia after paying off the men who did this."

"What were they supposed to do?"

"Work us at hard labor in the sun, exhaust us, burn our feet so we couldn't stand, and then strand us in the hole we dug too weak to claw our way out. Without food and water, we would have died within another day or two. With the sand piled on either side of the hole, the winds would have blown sand back into that hole over time. We might never have been found if his plan had worked."

"Diabolical."

"Yes, and apparently it was what she was supposed to do in order to inherit. He had someone watching her to make sure she did as he requested. No one seems to know who that is so there's another person out there yet that we need to uncover."

"Do you have a plan?"

"No, I only have begun to think straight again. I need more water and more sleep."

By then, the wagon had reached the yard. Hoss and Ben carried Adam into the washroom laying him on the large table Hop Sing kept there. Hop Sing had spread two thick blankets on the table. It had been used for this purpose before. Soon Adam was bathed and his wrists and ankles were bandaged. Not much was done with the wound in his side because they planned to wait for Doctor Martin to arrive before anything was done with that. Hop Sing pressed a clean bandage over the wound to protect it. Once Adam was cleaned up, Hoss and Ben carried him to the bed in the downstairs guest room despite his objections that he could get there on his own. They set him on his feet and his one attempt to take a step caused him to fall forward into Hoss' arms settling that argument. He waited in the bed down there for the doctor to arrive. Charity helped him drink water and beef broth until then and he fell asleep resting for a half hour before Paul arrived. Paul examined the wound, cleaned and drained it, and bandaged it tightly. He addressed Charity then who had hovered behind him as he checked on Adam.

"He should have no problem with it if you keep it clean. Change that bandage as often as needed to keep it dry. It could be every few hours today and then less as it begins to heal. He needs to sleep obviously, but I see a full recovery. However I see that you need some sleep as well. You should probably go up to your bed and rest too."

"I don't want to leave him."

"Well, then, lie down beside him and close your eyes. I'll tell Ben I prescribed sleep for both of you for the next several hours."

Once Charity agreed, Paul went out then to inform Ben and Adam's brothers of his findings and was invited to have an early lunch with them. Happy to agree, he was soon surrounded by yawning men. He told Hop Sing that he would take a delicious sandwich with him, and that all of them ought to get some sleep. Ben agreed but did ask Paul one favor and explained why. With a smile, Paul departed, and they took his advice and grabbed a nap. By midafternoon though, Hoss headed over to the McCarren ranch to tell Prudence, Todd, and Virginia what had happened, and Ben thought more about the plan he had and talked with Joe about it. He knew he needed to discuss it with Adam before he went to Roy with it. They had to smoke out this unknown man and they probably would have to use Julia to do it. She would never cooperate so they were going to have to manipulate her into doing what they needed her to do.

As Hoss expected, Prudence was shaken by the news that her mother could have arranged something like that. "She hired men to kill Adam?"

"Well, ya see, she probably didn't see it like that. They was gonna strand him and Eric in the desert. The desert was gonna kill 'em. Now by the law and the way I see it, it's the same thing as killing 'em, but I guess she didn't see it that way. She told the men she hired that they couldn't kill 'em cause she didn't want to risk the gallows. That right there says she ain't got the smarts to see what she was doing was the same thing. Old Toad told her just what to do. Somebody is watching too to see that she done it. She only gets to keep the money if Adam and Eric are dead."

"So she'll lose all that money now?"

"Well, she will, but she don't know that yet. The men who did it are in jail, but Adam got shot. So, Pa's got an idea. He's waiting on Adam waking up so he can talk to him and Charity. Pa thought it might be best ifn you was to come to the house too to hear it all out. Maybe you too, Todd and Virginia, could come with us. Pa said maybe all of us ought to talk it over to see how it could work."

"How what could work?" Todd was curious.

"Pa's working on a plan, and seeing as how Julia is family to you all, you ought to be in on it as we see it."

Prudence leaned against Hoss who gathered her into his arms. He rubbed her back and tried to comfort her. His high hopes of asking her to marry him had to be delayed. Instead they had this to handle first. Todd went out to get the carriage ready and Virginia gathered up things for the baby. Soon they were on their way to the Ponderosa. When they got there, Hoss was surprised to see that Joe was gone.

"I decided that we needed to give Roy some idea of what we were planning, and then I thought that we had not made any provision for Eric to be protected. Eric and his family will be coming out here to stay if they wish, and Roy can talk to the three men in jail to get their cooperation in our plan. We're going to need them too. I don't care too much how long they're locked up as long as we get the ones who set this up. Joe is taking care of all of that."

Hoss was going to go find out if Adam was awake yet. Ben stopped him.

"Hoss, you do not open the bedroom door of a married couple."

"But, Pa, he's shot."

"It doesn't matter. We'll wait for them to come out on their own."

In the guest bedroom, Charity was snuggled up against Adam's unwounded side. She raised her head and smiled at her husband. They had heard the exchange between Hoss and Ben. "Your father knows you well."

"I suppose he does. You should get dressed now. Would you get me some clothing too? I'd like to wear something more than those dirty pants to greet our guests."

When Charity emerged from the guest bedroom, Ben indicated clean clothing for Adam on the dining table and his slippers next to his chair. Soon, with Hoss' help, Adam was able to join the group, and they started to plan in earnest as Adam endorsed his father's idea. In fact, he rather liked the idea and the time it would give him with his wife. Charity had the same thought. Their smiles had everyone there thinking the same thing.

Chapter 7

Arriving at his office and looking terribly worried, Paul Martin climbed down from his carriage and Roy met him. As usual, people gathered close hoping to hear whatever news the doctor was going to share with Roy. This time they were going to get a very good story.

"Paul, you're looking mighty darn worried there. I thought you was going out to see Adam. Now there ain't no bad news there, is there?"

"Roy, I'm afraid there is. I never expected this. There was some pus draining from the wound but I expected that. It didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. I bandaged him up, and he seemed fine yesterday."

"But today?"

"Roy, it's peritonitis."

"Is that what I think it is?"

"If you're thinking he's got a bellyful of infection, then you're right. It's just started, but Roy, you know there's no way to stop it once it gets going. There's nothing a doctor can do. We can pray for him. Sometimes men are able to fight off an infection like that, but he was so weak when they brought him in. He hadn't had any water or food for a full day, and he lost all that blood."

"Are you thinking he might not make it?"

"Roy, I don't like to say things like that."

"I've known that boy since he was a rascal of about seven or so. I can't think of a world without him in it. Doesn't seem natural to me to have a boy gone before his father. Ben's got to be beside himself."

"He is, and Charity is sitting by the bed in shock not knowing what to do. They haven't even been married a year yet."

"It's a sad thing. Well, them jaspers over in my jail might be facing a murder charge after all ifn he dies. I better go have a talk with them. They might want a lawyer after all."

As Paul turned to go into his office, Roy took a quick look at the faces of the people nearest him. They looked shocked which meant they had heard the story or enough of it to have it spread all over town soon. He wanted it that way because his information was that Julia was due to arrive that morning. She needed to know that her target was at death's door, but that he might take a while to die. That would make her stay in the area longer, and it might make her contact come to see her. They were hoping that would be the case. Having jailed the men she hired was another complicating factor, but other than the Cartwrights, only he and Clem knew what they had confessed. With the chance at a light sentence, the three had agreed to cooperate fully. They would play their parts of the sullen and uncooperative criminals. Hiram had agreed to play the part of their attorney. He would be over at the office soon so all of them could talk. Joe's visit the day before had been at first a bit disturbing to Roy but the idea had grown on him the more that he got to think about it. It was a complicated scenario, but Roy knew that Ben was correct. They needed to smoke out this unknown man if Adam and Eric were going to be safe in the future. Eric didn't want to go to the Ponderosa, but he had sent his two boys out there. His wife was staying with friends, and Eric was going to be staying in a different place every night. After the meeting, Roy intended to meet the stage and greet Julia. He would of course give her the bad news about her nephew-in-law to gauge her reaction.

On the Ponderosa, the 'sick' man was moved to his upstairs room where he would have to take all of his meals and spend all of his time. They couldn't risk anyone seeing him moving around and possibly sharing that information with anyone. Eric's two sons were put in the downstairs guest bedroom, and Ben as well as Hoss and Joe enjoyed having them around. It was good to have some joy in the house. It was a matter then of waiting to see what Julia would do.

As expected, Julia made a trip out to see her daughter and her niece. She showed off her new wardrobe and bragged about the nice room she had in town and how she was going back to Philadelphia in style. When questioned about how she got the money, she was less than forthcoming, but it didn't matter because they already knew where she had gotten the money. They guessed that she had to be nervous about the three men being held in jail, but outwardly she showed no signs of that. Roy had a man in a room on each side of her room in the hotel. They watched her every move in the hotel following her in and out. She was followed at a distance when she left town and when she returned. No one approached her, and she received no messages of any kind. After several more days of that, frustration set in with those watching for something to happen.

As Charity lounged in bed one morning, she voiced her complaints. "I want to celebrate our news. I want to see your father smile and shake your hand or whatever he's going to do when he finds out. Instead, we have to keep the biggest news you've had since you asked me to marry you as a secret while we wait for my aunt Julia to do something so we can catch whoever the other person is in this plot."

"At least you get to leave this room. Now that I'm feeling better, I would like to do something but I'm stuck in here. It sounded so good when I felt awful. I thought lounging in bed with you for days was going to be so great, but now we're getting crabby with each other because we want to have something more to do."

"I get to leave the room, but I have to act like I'm so sad whenever anyone is around. I have to act like my husband is dying so that if anyone is watching they'll see that and believe our story."

"Maybe nothing is going to happen for a while. Whoever it is was very patient to wait this long. Maybe they'll wait even longer for another opportunity."

"How much more time do we give this plan before we give it up?"

"Pa said the judge will be in town on Monday. If nothing happens by then, the three men in jail will have to go before him on the assault charges as we agreed because of their cooperation. At that point, I guess Roy could arrest Julia. At least she won't get away with it."

"She'll go to prison this time, won't she?"

"Judges can be unpredictable when it comes to sentencing women, but I believe that with the testimony of the three men she hired and what they did on her orders, she will."

"Paul is supposed to be here again today. Your father will come up with him. He always does. We can talk then about what we're going to do and how long we're going to keep up this charade. It sounds like until Monday morning."

"It does. That means only two more days of this. I think that perhaps Pa or someone should go confront Julia and see if they can put some pressure on her."

"Maybe I can go with your father. The two of us could try to get her to cooperate. If she did, do you think we could offer her a deal like we did with the other three?"

Charity could see that Adam was opposed to that idea but at least was thinking about it and not rejecting it immediately. "I suppose it might be worth it if we get the unseen threat removed but only if her cooperation helps us uncover whoever is behind this. If she cooperates, but we don't find out who the mystery man is, then I see no reason to give her any leniency after what she did."

"I agree. Let's present it to your father that way. The two of us can go see her tomorrow and try to break her down. She's got to be getting nervous by now too, and when we tell her that you're going to survive and she sees her wealth disappearing, she's likely to be in a panic. We can take advantage of that."

"It's a relief just to hear that there's an end to this in sight. Now how about some breakfast?"

On Sunday morning then, Hoss and Joe got to take Eric's sons back to town for the family to reunite. There would be someone watching the family until this whole scenario played out, but it was thought that he was the secondary target. More attention was going to be paid to Adam.

In the afternoon, Ben and Charity dressed for dinner after sending an invitation to Julia to have dinner with them. She had accepted probably as much out of curiosity as out of the chance to be seen in Virginia City with a respectable pair of citizens. Despite her new found wealth, Julia had found that most people didn't treat her with the respect that she thought she deserved. She hoped that such a dinner might help her gain some of the respect she so craved.

There was one very disappointed Cartwright though. Both Ben and Charity thought that it was best if Adam stayed home. They thought that his presence would not help them get Julia to talk even with the shock value of having him show up looking healthier than she expected. He was still a bit pale from his ordeal, and although freed from any bed rest, both thought he could stand to stay at home. So he reluctantly had the house all to himself by late afternoon because Hop Sing had taken the day to go see some of his family in Virginia City. Adam got a book and sat in his blue chair by the fireplace to get comfortable. He was deep in the novel when he heard a sound from the kitchen. Thinking that Hoss and Joe had returned, he was slow to look up. When he did, he saw a stranger standing at the dining room table pointing a pistol in his direction.

"You must have nine lives. I guessed that something like this was going on. You look much too healthy to be at death's door. I shall take care of this myself and be done with it. You are the reason my brother is dead. All he wanted was to own this land."

With no idea who the man was, Adam was at a loss but he did detect a slight English accent. He rapidly ran through all the possibilities, and then the startling conclusion appeared. "He tried to get all the land in the area. He tried to kill me. He kidnapped my wife and me. He had my brother shot. He broke about every law there is."

"What does it matter out here? He's dead and you aren't. I mean to even those statistics."

With that, the man raised his pistol to fire, but there were several shots. He fell, Adam fell, and then there were shouts and men rushing into the room. Ben hurried to Adam's side.

"Are you all right, son?"

"I am, but aren't you supposed to be in Virginia City right now? Not that I'm complaining, but I am surprised, on several counts."

"Charity figured it out. As we were driving to town, we saw a man riding and she began going through the things that we knew. It was remarkable to more or less listen to her think. She's quite intuitive."

"She knew that this was the man who would try to kill me?"

"No, but she figured out that all this inactivity was to lull us into thinking nothing would happen so that we would leave the ranch, and that would give someone like that lone rider access."

"Where is she?"

"Right beside you if you turn your head the other way."

Then Ben turned his head the other way as the couple kissed.

Chapter 8

As the mess was being cleaned up and the body removed, Charity finished telling the story. "We saw Hoss and Joe heading back toward the ranch and asked them if they recognized the rider. Neither of them did, but Hoss said he looked kind of familiar and not in a good way. You know those gut feelings your brother has. We turned the carriage around and came back here. As we got close, Hoss and Joe rode around the back way to see if that rider had come toward the house and found his horse. Joe rode back to tell us that he had. Hoss came up the back way, we came in the front, and Joe came in from the side. It was terrible hearing what he was saying and knowing he probably had a gun on you, but until Hoss or Joe did something, we didn't want to come barging in the front door and make him shoot you. We couldn't see where he was. We guessed that Hoss or Joe was going to be able to see that better with the windows."

Picking up the story at that point, Joe took it to the conclusion. "As I snuck in through the kitchen, I saw Hoss peeking in the dining room window. He signaled me by pointing to where the man was. Then he counted down with his fingers, one, two, three, and I came through the door as he fired at the man. That was all Pa needed to come busting in the front door and you know the rest."

"Your timing was impeccable."

"Im what?"

"Just right, Hoss, just right."

"Thanks, but we made ourselves a mess of work. You think you're ready to help caulk up the dining room window? I think we got a spare piece of glass in the supply shed."

"Me and Joe will get this body to town and tell Roy what happened. My guess is that he can arrest Julia then."

"Yes, and perhaps he can find out who this man is, and then we can find out who that man was who tried to get the Ponderosa and all the ranches in the area."

"The one who kidnapped Charity and then you?"

"That's the one. Apparently this is that man's brother. He was back for revenge, and perhaps to try again for this land. At least it's all over now. We finally have the man in the shadows who was behind the whole thing. I thought he was going to kill me. Until I saw a shadow in the kitchen doorway, I didn't think I had a chance. I couldn't think of anything I could do to get out of this one."

"Wow, I never thought I would ever hear that. My older brother admitting he didn't have a plan or an idea when he needed one. Hoss, can you believe that?"

"Joe, it ain't nothing to joke about 'specially now. Let's get this mess cleaned up and go talk to Roy."

With a good hard look at Joe so that he wouldn't say anything more, Hoss looked over at Charity and could see how upset she looked. In fact, he thought that she looked ill. That was confirmed a few minutes later when Adam escorted her outside. He said she wasn't feeling well and needed to be outside because the smells were making her nauseated. She retched, and then she clung to him as she cried. He held her and rubbed her back.

"How can you be so calm? I want to scream."

"I'm not calm. Inside, my belly is still churning, and my heart was pounding so hard for a while that I was sure all of you could hear it. I wish I could throw up and I wish I could cry so I could release some of what is inside me. I can't. It's not who I am. I hold it all inside until I can get control of it. Then I'm all right again."

"You know there's another reason for me to be sick."

"Yes, it's the bright spot in all of this."

"When we see Paul next, I want to talk to him about it."

"That's a good idea. He'll want to take the stitches out of my side. Perhaps tomorrow, we could see him for that. We have to go to town anyway. I'm sure that Roy is going to want to talk to me about what happened here, and I have to talk to the judge about what happened with me and Eric at the hands of those three men in the desert. They're pleading guilty so it shouldn't be much of an issue."

"Once Hoss and Joe get to town to tell him what happened, he's going to arrest Aunt Julia, isn't he?"

"I assume so. Hoss will probably go tell Prudence then. He had high hopes for the two of them. I hope this doesn't delay things too much."

"Does he have the ring already?" Adam's smile was the only answer she needed. "She talked to me and knows he's going to ask her. She'll be ready to say yes, but she'll want time to get ready for the wedding. She's nervous about being married. I think he should go ahead and ask her. Then she can get used to the idea, and it won't be right away anyhow."

"Will it be breaking any kind of confidence if I tell him that?"

"No, I think that what I've told you is not anything that breaks a confidence. It's in her best interest for Hoss to know that."

"I'll tell him before he leaves. Now, can I walk you back to the porch at least? We don't have to go back inside."

"Good. And perhaps you could ask Hop Sing for some tea?"

Soon Charity had a large mug of tea liberally dosed with milk and honey. Adam smiled as he handed it to her. She looked at it and then up at him. "Does he know? Did you tell him?"

"I'm sure he knows. He always seems to know things. How he knows, I don't know. He said when you finish that, he will bring you some warm apple cider and ginger cookies. He said that would be good for your stomach."

"Actually, that does sound good."

"All, right, sip that, lean back, and keep your eyes closed. I think they're bringing the body out soon. I'll help them, and then they'll have it out of here quickly."

"Don't do anything to pull those stitches."

"I thought I would mainly shield you from seeing what they're doing."

A short time later, Adam had a large blanket he hung from the porch posts. Charity could hear him and his brothers but couldn't see anything. When she heard horses leaving, she breathed a sigh of relief. Adam took the blanket down then and put it over her lap and sat beside her. Let's sit here and relax until dinner. Hop Sing brought out a tray with beverages and cookies as promised. Ben joined them then as they sat quietly and waited for Hoss and Joe to return. Adam and Ben read while Charity napped with her head resting against Adam's shoulder. Several hours later as dusk arrived, Joe rode into the yard. He looked far more serious than expected and he was alone which surprised all of them.

"Joe, where's your brother?"

"Pa, he had some bad news to tell Prudence. He went right there and then he planned to take her to town. He'll stay there tonight."

"What happened?"

Looking at Charity and worried how the news would affect her, Joe glanced at Adam too. "Well I don't know how else to say this, but Charity, I have some bad news about your aunt. We were going to tell Roy what happened here and we expected him to arrest her. He went to do that, but there was no answer at her door. He asked the clerk to open her door. She was laying on the floor."

"Oh, no, Joe, what happened to her?"

"From what Doctor Martin could tell when Roy called him there, she was poisoned. Someone must have gotten something and put it in the pitcher of water in her room. She was probably dead last night already. Paul said it had probably been quick. She was still wearing the dress people had seen her in yesterday."

"So the man who was killed here today probably killed her. Then he came out here to kill Adam. I wonder what he would have done next."

"Pa, that's what Roy thinks too, but there's no way of knowing. That's what makes the most sense though. Roy says that the men in jail are worried, but Roy thinks they're safe. He thinks that there's no one else involved."

All four of them were quiet then thinking of how tangled this web had been, but that hopefully finally all the parts had been unraveled. Poor Prudence though had now lost her mother to the scheme, but at least she had Hoss to comfort her. Adam wondered how it was going to affect Hoss' plans to marry her though. That subject didn't come up until several days later. First they had a few things to get done. The next morning, the whole family headed to town. Adam and Charity rode in the carriage with Ben while Joe rode Cochise. In town, Adam headed to Doctor Martin's office with Charity to get his stitches out. While there, they asked the doctor to examine Charity too. Then they joined Ben and Joe at the courthouse where the three men who had kidnapped and assaulted Adam and Eric were facing the judge. Roy explained to the judge how the three men had cooperated since their arrest and helped unravel a criminal conspiracy. The judge asked Adam and Eric if they accepted that the three men were only being charged with assault because of their cooperation. They said they did. The judge wasn't entirely happy but accepted their answer as well as Roy's recommendation. He was stern though in his sentencing.

"You three men will serve one full year for your offense. When you are released, you will leave the state of Nevada not to return for nineteen years. If you are in this state again, you will serve the rest of the twenty-year sentence you should have gotten for kidnapping and attempted murder. I am holding that in abeyance for the full twenty years. Is that clear?"

The three men nodded. Hiram had continued as their actual lawyer and spoke to them quietly. They spoke up then thanking the judge one-by-one, and then turning to apologize to Adam and to Eric for what they had done out of greed. Adam looked at them and nodded.

"You've gotten a second chance. When the year is up, make the most of it. I have the name of someone in California who will be willing to give you a real job if you want it. Hiram will have his name. Contact him when you're released."

The men thanked Adam and filed out of the court under Roy's supervision. As Adam and Charity walked out with his family, he asked Hoss about Prudence.

"She's got a funeral to take care of. I'm staying in town to help her. Hiram is gonna help us with the legal stuff. When it's all done, I'll get her back home. She don't want nobody at the burial. She only wants the minister and me there. I hope that's all right with everybody."

Ben was concerned and wanted to do something for Prudence. "Hoss, I understand her feelings, but perhaps she would be willing to have a gathering of our family and hers at our house on Sunday. By then, she might be willing to have family around, and we could all use some time together. Everyone needs some time to heal from all that's happened."

"Pa, I like the idea. I'll ask her about it and try to get her to say yes to the idea. I think she will. I'll let you know as soon as I can. I already gave my statement to Roy about what happened yesterday. I know he wants to hear from the rest of you so ifn you don't mind, I'll go see how Prudence is doing, and you can take care of that."

So Ben, Adam, Charity, and Joe gave their statements to Roy. Hoss helped Prudence, and the next day Julia was buried next to her brother. Two days later, Hoss saw that Prudence got home to the McCarren ranch after Hiram and Roy told her that all the legal details were done. All the money in Julia's accounts was going to Prudence making her a rich woman. There were two other names on the account. One was Mann who was deceased, and the other was Reginald Chesterfield. He was the man shot on the Ponderosa. His brother had been Harold Chesterfield. They were two disgraced English gentlemen who had been disinherited by their family and had hoped to recreate their wealth and power in America. With the help of unscrupulous and dishonest friends in government and greedy friends in business, they had almost succeeded. However, they were now dead and all those who had helped them were scurrying to cover up any ties to the two. The whole mess was finally over.

Chapter 9

On Sunday evening, the gathering was quiet but pleasant. Hoss walked with Prudence for a time outside before she rode home with Todd and Virginia and the baby. He came back inside then and sat quietly with the rest of the family. Joe was the only one who seemed to have energy to spare.

"I miss Eric's boys. It was nice having Todd and Virginia's baby here too. I like having the sound of kids in the house. It gives this place some energy. It's a lot of fun too."

Sitting quietly and observing, Ben couldn't miss the wistful look that Hoss had nor the small half smiles that Adam and Charity gave each other. He wondered when they were going to share their news. He hoped that Prudence and Hoss would be able to work out getting married despite the tragedy of Julia's death. He knew it had complicated matters but hoped it wouldn't be too serious a problem. The following Sunday, he got both answers. Hoss took Prudence to church services as had been their habit for quite some time, and then they spent the early afternoon together before they returned to the Ponderosa for an early dinner. Hoss could hardly stop smiling so it wasn't much of a surprise when he announced before dessert that he had a big announcement to make. Prudence had been hiding her left hand under the table all through dinner, but Charity had seen the flash of a ring there before they sat down.

"Pa, I got an announcement to make. I wanted all of you to hear it first before we told anybody else. Me and Prudence are getting' married."

After all the whoops and hollers, mainly from Joe, and the congratulations from everyone, Ben and Adam made toasts to the couple with the champagne that Hop Sing brought out. Then it was time for dessert and some discussion. Ben asked about the date.

"Well, you see, that's a bit of an issue with her ma dying and all. She said that in Philadelphia, she would have been expected to wait for maybe up to two years to marry cause she would have been in mourning. But she talked to Virginia who said no more than six months would be necessary at the longest, and that out here sometimes it's a lot shorter than that cause people are more practical. Some don't wait no time at all. Well to be sure, Prudence says we ought to wait the six months. That makes for a February wedding, and I kinda like that idea too."

"In February, we could have a difficult time getting guests out here unless you want a wedding in town."

"No, we want a wedding here, and Pa, we want a small wedding. We were thinking that we don't want a lot of guests. Maybe just a few good friends and then the families, you know, everybody here, and Todd and Virginia."

"We can certainly do that. What about your sister and her family, Prudence?"

"I don't think she'll come, Mister Cartwright. She doesn't think much of anything out here, and even if we have money, she thinks of everyone out here as not quite civilized. I don't want you to think that I think that now, but I did when I first came out here. I expected things to be very different than I found them. Mister Wood sent her a telegram asking if she would like to come out here to be in court to receive any of mother's estate. She wired back that she wasn't interested. He sent her a letter to sign saying that officially. She sent it back immediately signed so that she wouldn't have to show up here in court. She never asked how much money mother had."

Everyone at the table grinned at Hiram's cleverness. Without disclosing that Julia had inherited a significant amount of money, he had gotten all of it for Prudence by getting her sister not to contest the settlement in court that gave it all to Prudence. Hoss turned his attention to Adam and Charity next.

"Prudence and me would like the two of you to stand with us for our wedding. We couldn't think of two people who had more to do with us getting together than the two of you."

Sharing somewhat nervous looks at first, Adam nodded when Charity smiled at him and said a quiet 'yes' to his unspoken question. He looked at Hoss and started in a very serious tone that had Hoss shocked at first. "Sorry, Hoss, but we have to say no." Adam paused and waited for a reaction. He saw his father smiling but had suspected that his father had already guessed. "In six months, Charity will be in no condition to be standing for a wedding as she will be due to deliver our baby at about that time."

There was another round of whoops and hollers, this time from Hoss and Joe, and then more congratulations and more toasting. Hop Sing placed a cup of tea before Charity as he served more champagne to the others. The celebration went longer than anyone had anticipated. Ben had little to say after the toasts. His emotions were close to the surface as he watched Hoss escort Prudence out the front door to take her home, and then watched as Adam wrapped an arm around Charity as she sat beside him and they talked to Joe about baby names.

"I like Joseph Adam Cartwright. You could call him Jac for short."

"What if it's a girl?"

"Josephine is a pretty name."

As Adam shook his head, Joe and Charity began giggling. Ben was sobered by a thought though. By the time the baby was born, Adam and Charity would be in their new house. Adam would have his home finished before Christmas. He had been adamant about that. Hoss and Prudence would likely want their own house too because Hoss had said he wanted a 'passel' of children. Things had been changing so fast in the past year that Ben found it somewhat unsettling. For the next week, that was how he felt. On Saturday, he took a ride out to the lake. He must have spent more time there with his thoughts than he had planned because Adam came up behind him in the late afternoon. Ben heard the leaves crunching under his son's boots and turned to greet him. It was only then that he realized that the sun was getting low in the sky.

"We were wondering where you were, and Candy said he saw you ride off this way hours ago. I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, but I was concerned."

Turning toward the lake again, Ben still had his hand on Marie's marker. "I come here often when I need time to think, to try to find peace when my thoughts are in turmoil."

Walking up beside his father, Adam put a hand on his shoulder. "A lot has happened in the past year, but it's been mostly very good for the family and for the Ponderosa."

"It has been."

"Why are you so troubled then?"

"It's not the dream I had. So much is changing all around me that it scares me. I'm not prepared for all the changes, for the challenges. I had planned for how it was all to look and how it would all work. It was working that way too. I knew what to expect each day. I saw my sons in the morning, and I knew from day-to-day and month-to-month what would happen. Oh, there were unexpected setbacks, but none that we couldn't overcome together. Now you'll be gone, and by this time next year, Hoss will be gone. When I come down to breakfast in the morning, I won't know all that is happening nor who is doing what. It worries me."

"Pa, we won't be gone. We're still on the Ponderosa. We're still part of the whole." As his father continued to stare out over the lake, Adam reminded him of some things they had talked about in the past. "You told me that when you left to go west, Grandfather challenged you, and you told him that if your dreams didn't scare you, then they weren't big enough. Isn't that still true?"

"Do you remember everything?"

"Only the important things. I remember too when we settled here, and you told me what it would be one day. I couldn't believe it except my father said it would happen so I had to believe it was possible. You told me that the only impossible things are the ones you haven't tried to do."

"So you think now I need to dream with my boys and see the dreams you have too."

"We shared your dreams. You can share ours, and those of our children. You wanted us to marry. Now we are. We're going to have those grandchildren you wanted and wondered if you would ever have." Then in an uncharacteristic moment of candor, Adam admitted something too. "Pa, I'm scared too."

"Why would you be scared? Many of these changes are because of your ideas?"

"But I have a child to consider now. I know now how you must have felt having a big dream, but having a family to protect and nurture too. It's a lot of responsibility. We can use all the help we can get."

"So we have to find a new way for all of us to work together?"

"We do, and who better to manage that than the one who holds this family together through everything? It will be a challenge, but we know you can do it. How do we manage to work together while having our separate homes and families? Together and apart at the same time."

"Your house isn't that far away."

"No, it isn't."

"Hopefully Hoss won't build too far away either."

"I don't think he will. He may build closer than we did. Prudence likes having people close by. She's more dependent on others than Charity. If Hoss is listening to what she needs, he'll be very close."

"I'm thinking that perhaps we could meet at the house fairly often."

"That's probably the way to go. You'll have to come up with a plan, and then we'll go with that once I'm in my house."

"You knew what I would say before I said it, didn't you?"

With a squeeze of the shoulder, Adam released his father and headed back toward his horse. "We need to get going. Hop Sing said dinner was in an hour and that was nearly an hour ago. We're going to get a tongue lashing from him as it is."

"Sometimes it seems that he thinks he's the boss of the Ponderosa."

"I'm not going to be the one who tells him he isn't."

About nine months later, Ben was back at that same spot at the lake, but to write in his journal and have some quiet time. It had gotten very hectic at the main house.

It's been a very exciting time, and I've not had time to even read in my journal much less write. I'm going to make up for that now. When my grandchildren read this, I want them to have a full story of the Ponderosa and not have too many long gaps in the story. Hoss delivered his big news today that he and Prudence are having a baby. I couldn't be happier. He'll be in his new house by then too, but as Adam predicted, it is only a short walk from the main house. Now he has promised me that he and Prudence will be over for dinner quite often when they move over there and I hope that when the baby arrives, they will continue that tradition. Adam and Charity were here on Sunday with their baby. He's growing so fast. He certainly did make Hoss' wedding a memorable one for everyone. He and Prudence had barely said their vows when Charity told Adam that she couldn't wait any longer. It was a good thing Paul was a guest at the wedding. His services were definitely needed, but it all turned out well even if Adam nearly succumbed to apoplexy during the whole thing. That's an exaggeration, of course, but my son was so on edge that it perhaps wasn't too far from the truth. He has told Charity that she can't have any more children as it is too hard on him at which point, each time, she gives him that long-suffering look that is quite amusing and makes the rest of us chuckle. She has had to cut back on the amount of work she is doing for the business so Adam has hired a man to do that work. Prudence continues to do the paperwork for the mine, but I doubt that will continue that once her baby is born. It is simply much too difficult to manage all of that work daily and care for a baby and a house. Both ladies will continue to do the correspondence because they are so skilled in their writing, but the work of posting in the ledger each day will be done by someone else. We are in the process of becoming a well-organized enterprise the likes of which Nevada has never seen. There isn't much that this family can't do when we work together. Now if Joseph could only find a woman to marry.

 

Sticks and Stones

Chapter 1

Working at his forge and experimenting with some designs for decorative door hinges, Adam was also responsible for watching over his son at play with Hoss' young son and a friend as their mothers worked together inside. He had made wooden swords that the boys were allowed to use for their play as they imagined themselves as various kinds of heroes. Most often they were knights or pirates depending on their mood at the time. Adam had gotten them to stand at attention while he had gone over the rules with them. They could use the swords and have mock battles and fights, but the swords were never to be used to hit another person, an animal or bird, nor anything that was in anyway breakable. His son Alex was well aware of the consequences of violating any of those strictures and Hoss' son although a year younger followed anything that Alex did. Hoss' son was named Gunther but everyone called him Hunter. It seemed that the mispronunciation of his name by Alex when he was very small had stuck. Adam thought that secretly Prudence was pleased with the nickname.

The third boy was there because Charity and Prudence had befriended a new neighbor who had purchased a ranch next to the McCarren ranch. The family had made friends with Todd and Virginia and then with Hoss and Prudence and through them Adam and Charity although it wasn't a friendship that Adam and Charity enjoyed much. There was something about the couple that made both of them uneasy. They had only known them a month so they hoped it wasn't anything serious. Hoss told him that he was being too suspicious, but even today he wondered at the boy, Harold, who wore long sleeves and long pants even though it was a hot day. When Adam had said he perhaps might want to roll up his sleeves, the boy had practically snarled at him. The boys ran about the yard with their swords and yelled and laughed. They had just run to the side of the stable, and Adam was going to call to them to come back out where he could see them when he heard crying. He dropped his work and rushed to the side of the stable to find Hunter bent over Alex.

"Harry hit him!"

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Put those swords on the ground now! You two march to the house immediately."

Once the boys had complied, Adam carefully picked up his son whose arm was bleeding and carried him to the house. Once inside, the ladies tried to sort out what had happened with Hunter accusing Harold who denied everything. Adam got Alex into the kitchen where he and Charity cleaned up the cut on his arm. It was fairly minor but there was an accompanying bruise and swelling.

Adam was angry because he had not wanted Harold to play with his son. "I told you that boy was not to be trusted."

Charity was perturbed because Alex had been injured while Adam under Adam's supervision. "You were supposed to be watching them."

"I was, but they ran to the side of the stable. Before I could call them back, this happened."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have blamed you." Turning to their son, Charity asked him how he had been injured.

"Harold hit me; real hard. It was his idea to go where Papa couldn't see us. As soon as we did, he hit me. I think he did it on purpose."

With a nod to Adam conceding his point, Charity helped Alex to stand. "Let's go out there now and try to sort this all out."

When they returned to their main room, Harold's mother looked both worried and a bit defiant as if she would defend her son if they accused him and worried that they would accuse him. Adam decided to try a diplomatic approach to see how she and her son would respond.

"According to Alex, Harold did hit him, but now whether it was by accident or on purpose remains to be determined. Alex seems to believe that Harold meant to hit him with the wooden sword. Harold, what do you say."

"I didn't hit him."

"Harold, I think we already know that's not true, don't we? Hunter and Alex both say that you did. Now was that an accident or did you hit him on purpose? You did remember the rules I told you about the wooden toy swords, didn't you especially the rule about not hitting another person?"

"That's a stupid rule."

Harold's mother, Mabel, got a bit upset with him then realizing how he was convicting himself with his own words. "Harold, that's no way to talk to Mister Cartwright. It's his home so it's his rules."

"Pa said he's got sissy rules. At our house, Pa said we ain't sissies. Pa says we can take a bit of punishment without whining about it."

"Harold, that's enough. Now why don't you apologize to Mister Cartwright and his son, and then we'll be on our way."

"Why should I hafta?"

"Because I told you to, and if I tell your Pa that you refused to do what I said then you know what he's going to do."

"Sorry."

"You have to say their names too."

"Sorry, Mister Cartwright and Alex."

"There, he's said he's sorry so we'll be on our way."

Without another word, Mabel gathered up her things and escorted Harold from the house. There was no thank you to Charity for hosting the gathering and for providing refreshments. There was no sympathy for Alex for his injury at the hands of her son. Virginia gathered her things and told her daughter that they were going to leave as well because they had ridden over with Mabel. She apologized for her friend and thanked Charity profusely for all that she had done, and she apologized to Alex for his injury and to Adam for what had happened. Adam was gracious to her.

"Virginia, it was none of your fault, but your friend has terrible manners, and her son is worse. I'm sorry, but she isn't welcome to bring that boy here any more unless he's willing to follow some basic rules."

"I understand. I'll tell her." With a little smile, Virginia added one thing. "But I won't tell her until we get to my house. I have a feeling it will be an unpleasant enough ride as it is."

Charity settled on the couch to nurse their daughter as Prudence's two daughters, Emily and Anne, sat beside her and worked on their coloring books. Adam had made coloring books for all of the children. He had made sketches and then bound them together using thin shingles from the Cartwright mill as covers. When open, the covers worked as a good work surface allowing the children to color almost anywhere they were. Charity suggested that both Hunter and Alex should do the same, but they wanted to go back outside and watch Adam work at the forge until Hoss got there to take his family back home. Adam smiled as he did every time he saw his wife nurse their daughter. He had gotten through the second delivery much better than the first but had had years to prepare for it. They had one miscarriage in between, but that had happened early in the pregnancy so they had weathered it fairly well. Hoss had three children and Prudence was carrying the fourth. Adam knew that Hoss was hoping for another boy. Their father was thrilled with the grandchildren, but even more thrilled that Joe was finally serious about a woman and had asked her to marry. When the spring drive was done and before Prudence was too far along, there was going to be a wedding. First though, there was this problem of what to do about Harold. In the fall, the boys were going to school and Harold was likely going to be an issue.

As Adam prepared to go outside, Charity reminded him to have a talk with the boys. He knew what she wanted so he nodded. He walked to the side of the stable, picked up the swords, and took them to the stable where he placed them up on a shelf. Then he went back to the forge and had to work to bring the coals back to a working heat again. He pulled the apron back on to protect himself telling the boys where to sit so they would be a safe distance away. They had done it before so were well aware of the dangers. He had been working on a particular design and got back to that concentrating on it until it was what he wanted. When it was cooled enough, he called the boys closer so they could look at it.

"It's kind of dark."

"Yes, Hunter, it is, but I'll polish it up. By the time I'm done with it, it will look much better, but this isn't what we'll be using for the final product. If we decide to make these, we'll be making molds and having these cast with bronze or brass. These are for inside door hinges. They're very decorative. Some people will pay a lot of money to have a unique design like this."

"It looks like a flower."

"It is. It's a flower on a vine. It's pretty but it also works so it does two things. It will make a door move and it will be art like the pictures you draw."

Hunter smiled then. He was a good artist for being so young and liked to draw. His drawings tended to be very colorful whereas the ones Alex did tended to very intricate. When he did geometric style designs, his son appreciated those more than the ones that looked like elements of nature. Adam liked to think that perhaps that meant his son had a head for design and architecture that might be superior to his own but he was still so young that Charity told him he was premature to guess what the boy would like to do twenty years later. Adam wasn't so sure though because he remembered dreaming about building things when he wasn't much older than Alex. He wouldn't say anything about that to his son though until his son brought up the subject. A boy's dreams ought to be his own. Adam remembered feeling weighted down by his father's dream. Sometimes he felt that he couldn't have his own dreams because he had to help his father with his dreams. He didn't want to do that to his son.

"Maybe you boys could make some drawings for me like Hoss does. He made a drawing that I used to come up with this. You could make drawings for me, and if I liked them, then I could use them to design hinges or even scrollwork." As soon as he said it, Adam knew he was in for a session of answering questions. He didn't mind much though. It kept the boys paying attention while he worked. He explained all the different ways that metal could be used in the decoration or function of a house and how their drawings could possibly help him design those things.

Being very practical in such matters, Alex had a question. "Do we get paid money for it?"

"No, it's a family business so you would be helping the family. You could also be proud of what you had accomplished."

"But, Papa, you and Uncle Hoss get paid to work for the family businesses."

"Yes, and then we use that money to take care of the family. If you got paid, you would have to spend the money taking care of the family."

"What does that mean?"

"Oh, you would have to buy food for the kitchen, supplies for the stable, nappies for your sister." As Adam expected, he didn't have to go any further. Alex put up a hand in surrender.

"That's all right. We don't have to get paid. But we'll need paper for drawing."

"I have paper that you can use. It's the back of paper that I have used for other things and I used it to sketch. Mama knows where it is. When you're ready to draw something, ask her for some of that paper. She knows where it is."

"What about paper for Hunter?"

"His father has paper. He makes sketches for me, remember?"

Both boys nodded at that. Although Hoss was more of a wood carver, he sketched out his carvings on paper first. It had been that habit that had caught Adam's attention and led him to make the suggestion that Hoss consider sketching some designs for him from nature. The two of them made a very good team with Adam having a very good eye for balance and grace while Hoss had a good eye for natural beauty. Both were practical men too so they had similar ideas about how a design might work for particular purposes. Adam was still chatting with the boys when Hoss arrived. He saw the bandage on Alex's arm so there had to be a full telling of all that had happened. Hoss said little, but the look he gave Adam said that they would talk later when the boys weren't around to hear them. Adam nodded. The two of them had always had a good method of silent communication. Their sons noted it but knew only that they had been shut out of some mysterious message once more.

Chapter 2

Watching the men loading the wagons at the mill with the orders that had been filled early, Hoss turned to Adam who was checking off items in the ledger. The plant manager was standing there with the shift foreman. Both men were smiling because they liked working at a place where working conditions were reasonable as was the pay and the bosses were willing to help out as often as needed.

"How are the new hires working out?"

"Most of them are doing well. We may have to let the newest man go."

"That's Jarrod, isn't it? He needs the money to make the payments on his ranch."

"He makes trouble with the other men. He's a loudmouth and he get's pushy if someone tries to get him to back down. It's not the kind of thing the new man on the job ought to be like. He ought to be listening to those who know what they're doing and learning. Instead, he's trying to tell people what to do."

With a shrug, Hoss looked at Adam. "That's what I wanted to tell ya, but I thought ya ought to hear it from our men here instead of second hand from me. I thought you was too suspicious of Jared and not giving him a fair chance, but now I guess you was right. Something ain't right with the man. We give him a right fair chance here and he acts like he owns the place instead of being grateful for the chance."

"It was the feeling I had about him right away. He seemed to have disdain for us even as he was asking us for a job telling us he needed some cash for the payments he needed to make on the ranch until he got his first round of calves raised for market."

"So I suppose if we up and fire him he'll blame us for losing his ranch."

"All right, I can see where this is going. I'll give him a warning. If he doesn't pay attention, then he loses his job. If he does what I tell him, then he can stay. Fair enough?"

With a big grin from each of the men and a slap on the back, it was settled. They had hoped that Adam would handle it. He had a way of intimidating most men with the quiet way he could talk so seriously and softly while maintaining a dead stare could make someone's insides quiver and their heart rate rise. He walked to the floor and asked Jared to walk outside with him.

"Why?"

"Because you work for me, and I told you to do it."

With a sour look, Jared silently followed Adam from the building. Hoss and the others could hear the conversation. It wasn't a pleasant one.

"You've been creating problems here arguing with the men and not following the orders given to you by the supervisors. That has to stop if you want to keep this job."

"Hey, I was only trying to make things better here. If they were doing a better job, I wouldn't have had to say anything to anyone."

"We have been operating here successfully for over five years. We have a good operation with good people running it. We are here frequently making sure things are done the way we want them done, and they see to it that they are. Anything you have to say goes against what we want done, and that is unacceptable. Is that clear."

"It sure is, Boss. Is that all, Mister Boss?"

"Yes, your keeping this job is dependent on a change in attitude. Your attitude toward me right now is not helping your position at all. If it was up to me, you would be fired right now. I have no use for you and your attitude. Any more of your disrespect, and you can collect any pay coming to you and try to find another job to make the payments on your ranch. Is that clear enough for you?"

Knowing that Adam had him in a bind on that point, Jared did something unusual for him. He kept his opinions to himself. He looked surly and unhappy but said nothing. He only nodded in acquiescence to the orders he had received. Adam took the measure of the man and knew he wasn't done with him yet. At some point in the future, there was going to be another confrontation between the two of them, perhaps more than one. As Jared went back to work, Adam walked back to Hoss and the other men.

"Well, older brother, I think ya done solved the problem here and shifted it right onto your own shoulders. He looked like he woulda liked to started a fight with ya right there ifn he coulda."

"Probably would have if he didn't need this job so badly. You better be ready to watch my back for a while. I have a bad feeling about him."

"I been meaning to talk to you about his boy too."

"The one who attacked my son or the older one?"

"Now all he did was hit him once. It was bad luck that it caught him that way and cut his arm. Even you have to admit a wooden sword ain't likely to cause a cut usually. Now I know he shouldna done it, but he is only five-years-old. But I been noticing that even when it's hot, he wears them long sleeves and long pants. You reckon he's sick with something?"

"No but I noticed it too. When I asked him to roll up his sleeves to be cooler, he got smart alecky with me. It's another reason I'm not fond of the boy."

"Well, he's always been all right with me. I think he needs a decent man to be around. When I see what kind of father he's got, I feel plumb sorry for the little feller."

Feeling a little chagrined at Hoss' explanation, Adam had to feel a bit guilty over his own attitude. "Yes, when you put it that way, I should be thinking more like you. I'll try to be more forgiving of his behavior, but I still have to protect my son."

"Course you do, but on Sunday at the church picnic, I want our boys to be able to play with Harold and have some fun. That boy needs to be around good people. It's the only chance he's got of growing up right like he should."

"He's like one of those wild critters you used to bring home when you were a boy. Now you're bringing home boys."

"You know, sometimes, I wish I could, but we hardly got room for the ones we got, and now we got another one on the way. That'll near fill up the house. I don't think Pru wants any more after this. It's getting to be a lot of work keeping up with three, and she's gonna have four before too long. It's not so bad at your house. You only got the two." Seeing a momentary dark look pass over Adam, Hoss apologized. "I'm sorry to remind you of the one you lost. That musta been hard." Hoss put his arm around Adam's shoulder, and that seemed to help Adam to open up about feelings that he had kept inside for a long time.

"I'm glad it was early. I know some women go all the way to the end and have a stillborn child. As painful as it was to lose a child nearly halfway through, I can't imagine the pain of losing one when you think you're about to welcome one into the family. Now after this last one, Doctor Martin told us that he thinks that may be it. There was a lot of tearing again. Charity had a lot of trouble delivering Alex, and that was probably why she lost the second one. Paul thinks it may have been a bit miraculous that we have Carrie. I'm happy although I think that it made Charity sad to think that she can't have any more."

"D'ya think it's cause she's so much younger than you."

"It could be that, but I think it's because a woman sees that as part of who she is, and she lost that part of herself. She'll be fine though. She's better now that Carrie is getting a little older and can smile and coo at her."

Knowing he needed to get to happier topics or Adam might slip into a dark mood as he was prone to do at times, Hoss smiled and brought up their father. "We shur have made Pa happy. Ya should heard him talking at the Cattleman's Association meeting about his grandchildren. He talks about 'em every chance he gets."

"Next time we take the boys fishing, we should ask Pa to come along. I think he would like that. The boys would too. They're getting to that age where they like to show off a little, and showing off to their grandfather is a good way to do it. He won't mind at all."

"He'll probably egg 'em on. Give him more to brag about."

"He seems preoccupied with Joe getting married though. I hope Diane doesn't change her mind."

"Now why would you say that?"

"She's a respectable southern lady. She was raised in a more genteel environment than this. Many times you can see how uncomfortable she is with how things are done out here. It may take some time for her to adjust."

"Yeah, I remember the first time that Charity started in to feeding the baby right there on the settee. I thought her eyes was gonna pop right outta her head. We're all used to seeing that with all the babies that done showed up in the last five years, but it must a been a shock to her."

"I'm sure in her family, they probably had wet nurses or at the very least did that where no one could see."

"Well, it weren't like we could see nothing. Charity had that little lace thing over herself."

"Yes, but it was the whole idea of it probably. Diane will have to get used to all of it. She seems to have trouble with the idea that we have Alex and Hunter at the table with us at mealtime too. I know it's crowded, but they mind their manners."

"Well, they better. They know what would happen ifn they don't. The girls like to sit in the kitchen with Hop Sing. We're gonna have to come up with a new plan when we get more of 'em big enough to sit with us though."

"The big Sunday night dinners may come to an end soon. Our families are simply getting too big."

"I hate to see it end."

"We'll have to come up with something else."

Before leaving, Adam told the plant manager to shut the plant down on Saturdays until they had more orders. They would run from Monday to Friday only to build up inventory. With that, Hoss headed off to work with Candy on preparing for the roundup and cattle drive while Adam headed to town to work on getting more orders for the mill and making sure that all the other orders were being shipped out as planned. On a whim, he stopped in the jewelry store to pick out something for his wife. Hoss talking about how Charity had been unhappy with what Paul had told them reminded him again of how sensitive she had been for the last few months. He had been as tender and gentle with her as he could be. She was beginning to show some of her old spark and sass with him. He decided that a romantic gesture on his part might help so he picked out a pretty brooch and had it wrapped but then saw a locket with a rose filigree design and bought that too. With two small parcels in his pockets, he left the store and headed to the chocolate shop. If he was going to be romantic, he decided to pull out all the stops. He bought chocolates and then stopped at the pastry shop and bought some of her favorites there too.

With all the errands he had run after doing the work he had to do, it was getting late by the time he headed for home. He was preoccupied with getting home and never saw the man up on the ridge. The setting sun reflected off the rifle barrel or he might never have gotten home at all. He jerked Sport to the side and that saved his life. He flung himself from the horse and got to cover. Sport was a short distance away so Adam did his best to coax the animal closer hoping to get his rifle. A few more shots meant that wasn't going to work though as Sport spooked and ran toward home. He was effectively pinned down. However it was clear that there was only one shooter so Adam couldn't be flanked and was grateful for that. The bushwhacker had relied on surprise and had hoped to succeed with that. He had no backup plan. Adam knew he would probably be safe if he could wait him out. No one could likely find him in the dark with the clothing he was wearing. It would only be a couple of hours. He settled down to wait observing the ridgeline to be sure the man wasn't working his way down to try to finish what he had started.

Nearly three hours passed before Adam heard a friendly voice calling his name. He yelled back to Candy to let him know where he was but warned him of a possible shooter up above. Because of that, it took another fifteen minutes before Hoss and Joe showed up with some hands. They were leading Sport.

"What happened to ya, older brother? What's this about a shooter?"

"Somebody up on that ridgeline tried to pick me off as I was riding home. If the sun hadn't reflected off the barrel, I wouldn't be talking to you now. They had me. I got into cover as fast as I could but I didn't have my rifle so I stayed here waiting for darkness. I heard noise and had no idea where he was. Until I heard Candy's voice, I didn't know if the noise meant that he left or that he was trying to work his way down here."

"Well, we better get you home. Charity's near scared to death. Any idea who'd want to shoot you?"

"Hoss, I think we both know the answer to that."

Joe didn't know though so they had to explain what had happened that day and the background on Jared as well as about Harold. Candy came back then to report that there was no one up on the ridgeline. Hoss said they could come back the next day and check for tracks. With that, they escorted Adam home.

Chapter 3

Resting in bed later with Charity comfortably snuggled into his side, Adam kissed the top of her head. She ran her hand over his chest once more so very grateful that there were no wounds there. She had been terrified when he had been so late. She had gone outside and fired three shots in the air knowing that help would come from the main house in a hurry. Ben had stayed with her and the children while Hoss and Joe led the others out to search for Adam because they all knew he wouldn't be that late unless something had gone very wrong. She and Ben had done their best to reassure Alex that nothing was wrong until finally she had to admit to him that she was worried because his father was very late, and that was why his uncles had gone riding off into the darkness. Ben noted that like his father had been at that age, Alex wasn't easily fooled. It had been a great relief to all of them when the whole group had ridden in with Adam at the lead. He had dismounted and grabbed Charity in a one-armed hug with an arm around Alex too. After thanking everyone for their help, Adam had retrieved the now crushed pastries and the somewhat worse for wear chocolates for his wife and son. Hoss and Joe volunteered to take care of Sport for Adam so that he could go in the house with his family. Luckily Carrie slept through most of it in Ben's arms. He had enjoyed that part of the evening. He handed the small babe back to her mother, and bid them goodnight after Hoss said he would explain what had happened.

Once Adam was safely inside his home and Sport was safely inside the stable and bedded down for the night, the rescue party headed back to the main house. By the next day, Ben sent a man over to stay at Adam's place to keep an eye on things when Adam wasn't there, and to be there to help at night if needed. Charity made up a nice bunk in the tack room of the stable and told Davis he could take all his meals with the family as long as he was there. Alex was intrigued with having another man around. He got a list of chores to do from Adam and worked around the stable and corral each day. Charity didn't want Adam to ride off to work anywhere that day so he agreed to work in the house on some designs and plans he had been putting off. He never put his coat on so he forgot about the two small parcels that he had put in his pockets. It hadn't been the romantic evening he had anticipated although his wife and son had enjoyed the pastries and chocolates having what Alex called an inside picnic in front of the fireplace as Adam ate a late dinner.

It was the next morning when Adam put on his coat and felt the small bulges in his pockets that he remembered his impulsive purchases. He grinned when he remembered and when he thought about what he could do that evening. It was Saturday so he would have more time to prepare and they could have a romantic evening. He looked forward to it as he stepped from the house to see Davis waving at him to get back in the house. He did and kept the door open a crack to watch. A man was riding near the house. He stopped and stared at the house for a short time before riding on. Once he was out of sight, Adam walked outside to talk to Davis.

"Any idea who that is?"

"None at all, but that's the second time he rode near here today. He seen me each time and then left. Somehow I got the feeling he's disappointed it ain't you."

"All right. I suppose that it would be best if I don't ride in that direction. I'm heading to the main house. I'll have them send some men to find out who it is. He's trespassing at the least." Seeing how worried Davis looked, Adam put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry. You did your job. I'll ride the opposite way. If he's following, he won't follow me right into the lion's den, and I won't come back here alone. All right?"

Stepping back inside the house briefly before he left, Adam told Charity that he was going to the main house. He told Alex to play inside until he got back. Charity wondered at that, but Adam only said he wanted to be careful. She wasn't sure he was saying everything but hoped he would explain more when he got back.

"You be careful, Mister." Her snappy tone was offset by the worry in her eyes.

"Always, and especially today. I have big plans for tonight."

With a huge dimpled grin, Adam left her wondering a bit what he had in mind although she had some idea what he meant, but she also knew he must have something more going on to grin like that. She had to smile thinking about his mischievous side as she went about her morning tasks. Alex relaxed too seeing both of his parents smiling. He guessed that all was right with the world if they were both relaxed and happy.

As Adam rode to the main house though, he grew more and more on edge finally giving Sport his head and letting him run because he had an uneasy feeling he was being watched. Hoss had come to his house the day before to report that the tracks from the ridgeline where he had been bushwhacked went back to the road so they had been no help. All they had was a strong suspicion of who had done it. When he reached the main house, he had to ask a hand to please walk Sport to cool him down. The men were aware of the potential danger he was in so asked no questions of why he rode so hard for such a short trip. Hoss asked though and immediately headed out with Joe and Candy to see if they could find the man who was shadowing Adam's place. They came back a short time later.

"They must a hightailed it outta there."  
Ben was as concerned as Adam at that statement but spoke first. "They?"

"Yeah, we found where tracks met up of two riders. Looks like one was a lot lighter than the other. Both headed back to the road. Candy is gonna stay over to your place 'til you get back, Adam. He said he would tell Alex he was there to show him those rope tricks he promised to teach him. Between him and Davis, they'll keep a close eye on the place."

"Hoss, would you ride with me when I go say hello to our new neighbor?"

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Ben was clearly concerned about Adam going to see Jarrod because there was no doubt in his mind who Adam meant when he asked Hoss that question. Before Adam could answer, Joe volunteered to go with him.

"I'll go too. Nobody gets to do that on our ranch. He needs to be put in his place right now. Two of us backing you up is better than one."

"Thanks, Joe. Pa, yes, I do think it's a good idea. All we have now is strong suspicion. What I want to do is see the look in his eye when I show up there. If it's not him, I want to know that too. Someone is out to get me. You can bet that I'm not waiting around for them to take another shot. I can't take a chance that I'm with my family when that happens."

With that explanation, Ben agreed that it made sense but told his sons to be careful. They rode out then heading straight for Jared's ranch. It took them across part of the McCarren ranch and they noticed some fences down when they crossed. They decided to swing by and tell Todd on the way back. When they got to Jared's place, he and his son Marvin were coming out of the stable. The three brothers rode up to the two but didn't dismount. Adam maneuvered so that the sun was in Jared's eyes and he had to look up and squint at Adam and his brothers. Adam did the talking while his brothers observed and watched his back.

"What you doing on my place? You ain't got no call to come here."

"I do if you were the one who shot at me and if you were the one riding on our ranch this morning."

"We only been out working on our place. I got the day off, remember, so I went out to help Marvin do some of the work."

"What were you doing?"

"We were, ah, well, that's none of your business, now, is it?"

"You got some fences down next to the McCarren ranch. Did you know that?"

"It's their fence, their problem."

"So I suppose if any of their cows and calves wander onto your property, you herd them back like a good neighbor?"

"Why don't you git on outta here. I got real work to do, and I ain't got time to be jawing with you."

With a tip of his hat, Adam wheeled his horse to leave, and Hoss and Joe followed him out of the yard and up the hill away from the ranch. When they were a safe distance away, the three brothers stopped to talk. Hoss spoke first.

"It was him all right."

Joe frowned at first but then smiled. "Yeah, he said they were out working, but no chaps and they've got some of the brushiest and hilliest land around. They should have been dusty too. They looked very fresh for working all morning. They weren't even sweating until Adam starting asking his questions. I thought the kid was going to wet himself. He looked scared."

"I'm sure he was the second rider who was following me today probably doing what his father ordered him to do. Now we know it's them, and Jared probably knows that we know. Hopefully that will be enough to get him to back off."

"I got to say I'm sorry for thinking you was too suspicious of that Jared when we first met him. He was so friendly to me and acted like everything was fine between us that I never thought he could be like this, but after what happened at the mill and now this, I know you were right to be suspicious. What I don't know is why you were."

"There was something odd about him. Things he said reminded me of people on stage. They sounded rehearsed like he was playing a part and it wasn't really him. We're seeing more of the real him now. It's damn ugly too. No wonder his boy isn't well behaved. How could he be with a father like that."

"Why, what did the boy do? And which boy, the one back there or the younger one?"

Because Joe didn't know about what had happened at Adam's house, Adam had to tell him that story.

"It wasn't that what happened was so serious, it was because of what could have happened or what could happen if they follow what he tells them to do. Alex and Hunter want to make people happy so they're willing to do things that they wouldn't do otherwise. This boy could get them in serious trouble or danger."

"But you're always with them, aren't you?"

"Joe, we were always with you too when you were young. But you were pretty fast and got away from me and Adam more times than we can even remember. Boys can be like that especially if they ain't got a lick a sense like that one."

"I'd like to get home to spend some time with my family today. Tomorrow is the church picnic. Joe will get his chance to see what those three boys are like together. Maybe he can help us keep an eye on them."

"You decided to let Alex play with Hunter and Harold then?"

"Yeah, as long as we keep them in sight at all times."

"Joe, you reckon you can help us with that?"

"I'll be with Diane. It's her first church picnic with us. So I'll help you as much as I can, but I want to make sure she has a good time too."

"I'll make sure that Pru includes her in with all the lady stuff. That should give you some time to help out. Charity will have the baby with her. Pa can help too."

The brothers moved on to the McCarren ranch then to let Todd know about some of his fences being down before they headed home. Adam got back by early afternoon just in time to have some late lunch. Candy and Davis had had a picnic outside with Alex so he was full of stories to tell his father. Charity was busy inside with Carrie so Adam spent the rest of the afternoon with his son. Then after dinner, it was bath time for the children. Once they were in bed, Adam told Charity it was bath time for the two of them. He brought candles and wine into the washroom and heated water for the tub. When she saw his preparations, she smiled. It had been a long time since they had had a romantic and relaxing evening. Later wrapped in cozy thick robes, they sat in front of the fire in the main room and finished the bottle of wine. Adam presented her then with the two gifts he had purchased a couple of days earlier.

Adam, they're beautiful. What's the occasion?"

"Nothing special other than I love you and wanted to give you something special. That's the occasion. Will you wear them tomorrow?"

"I will, and I will tell everyone that you gave them to me today because you love me."

"Maybe you could just tell them I gave them to you and keep the details to yourself."

"All right, if that's the way you want it." Then she kissed him and made him know how much she appreciated his gift and him.

Chapter 4

"Papa, are you a sissy?"

"What?"

Having just taken a glass of lemonade, Ben nearly spit it out hearing Alex ask his father that but then had to grin waiting to hear what Adam would say next. In fact, Hoss and Joe perked up too as did the ladies and Hunter. It seemed that Alex and Adam had center stage for this conversation. Hunter leaned over to his father with a question though. He whispered, or what passed for whispering for him, which was loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Papa, what's a sissy?"

"Well, Hunter, that's a man who's more like a girl and mostly kinda like a chicken too running from a fight instead of facing up to one. Now you just settle down here cause we all gotta hear if my older brother here is one of them there sissies." Hoss settled back against a tree waiting to hear what Adam would say but had to answer a question from his son first.

"Who's your older brother?"

"Your Uncle Adam is my older brother. You remember me explaining all that to ya, dontcha? And Uncle Joe is my little brother."

"I know Uncle Joe is your little brother cause he's smaller than you. But you're bigger than Uncle Adam. How can he be older than you?"

Temporarily stymied, Hoss had only an evasive answer. "We'll talk about that later. Now, you jest listen to your Uncle Adam explain how he's a sissy."

"I am not a sissy."

"Oh, right, your Uncle Adam is gonna explain as to how he ain't a sissy."

Sighing in exasperation, Adam turned to Alex. "Why would you ask me that question?"

"Harold said his father said you were a sissy. I said you weren't. Then he said you were again. I didn't know how to make him know you weren't. How can I make him stop saying that? You told me I couldn't punch anybody for saying things like that."

"Son, have you ever seen me run from work or from a fight to defend my family or our property?" Alex shook his head. Adam turned to the others. "Has anyone here ever seen me run from work or from a fight to defend my family or our property?" All the adults except Diane shook their heads. Looking back at Alex, Adam asked him if that answered his question. He said it did and smiled. He was proud of his father and didn't like anyone calling him names, but Adam had taught him that he couldn't fight about name-calling. He didn't know how badly Adam wanted to go over and pound on Jarrod for that very thing. Ben knew. When the family finished their lunch and the boys ran off to play with Hoss watching over them, he mentioned to his son that he was glad he had shown such restraint.

"Pa, he's egging me on. Sooner or later, there's going to be a fight. I'm doing my best not to be the one who starts it, but if he swings at me, I'm not going to turn the other cheek. I won't go that far."

"Son, I wouldn't expect you to go that far. But your son needs to see the example you're setting right now. I'm proud of the father that you are."

"I had a great teacher."

"Well, let's go see what those boys are up to. We wouldn't want them to get away from Hoss and get into any trouble. I know you worry about Harold playing with them. I'll help out."

When Ben and Adam got to the bank of the stream where the boys were with Hoss, they found the three boys sitting next to Hoss who was having what appeared to be a very serious conversation with them. They wondered what could be so serious so quickly to have required that so they listened as Hoss talked.

"So you see, there ain't no good reason to throw stones right at them fish. They ain't rightly done nothing to ya and they ain't gonna. We ain't gonna catch 'em and eat 'em. So ifn ya was to hit 'em with a stone or a rock and hurt 'em, you'd be most likely killing 'em for no reason at all. God didn't put creatures on this earth to be hurt for no reason. We hunt and we fish to put food on the table or to protect ourselves. We don't kill things for the fun of killing. That makes a man sick at heart and sick in his soul."

Hoss noted as did Ben and Adam that Harold dropped his head at that last part. He seemed sad and didn't come out of that state for quite a while that afternoon no matter what anyone said to him. When it was time to leave, there was a commotion by the wagons. Joe was the first to rush there because he heard Diane's voice. That meant the whole Cartwright clan followed quickly after him.

"No one should talk to a child like that."

"He's mine so it ain't none of your business. Who the hell are you anyway?"

"It does not matter who I am. What matters is that he is a child and you treat him as an animal. You should be the one whipped, not him."

By that time, Joe had arrived and put an hand on Diane's elbow. "Whoa, now, no one's getting whipped here today. It's a church picnic."

"Joe, this man and this woman threatened this little boy. They said he was going to be whipped with the buggy whip. He is only a small child. How could anyone say that to a small child?"

"I'm sure they didn't mean it. Now you folks didn't mean that, right? I mean, no one takes a buggy whip to a five-year-old boy, right?"

"It ain't none of your business, Cartwright, what we do. It's our family and I want you and yours to keep out of my business. Now if you'll get this woman out of our way, we'll be leaving." Pushing his wife and Harold toward the carriage, Jared turned his back on any who were watching and climbed into the carriage as well. He snapped the reins and the carriage pulled away with Harold looking back at the Cartwrights from the back seat.

"That boy looks plumb scared to death. Pa, we oughta do something."

"I don't know what we can do. He's right that it's his family. We can't tell him how to raise his sons."

Looking down at the ground and then looking again at the carriage pulling away in the distance, Adam turned to his father. "Remember Drew?"

"That wasn't the same thing."

"Wasn't it?"

Everyone else was wondering what Ben and Adam were discussing so Charity asked. "Who's Drew?"

With a carefully measured look at his father who nodded almost imperceptibly, Adam turned to the others. He noted that Hunter and Alex were as attentive as the others. It was a sad lesson they might learn on this day, but he had been about the same age when he had learned it. He knew he did have to be careful how he told the story.

"When I was about the age Alex is now, we were in Illinois. I made some friends for a short time. One of them was a lot like Harold. He seemed to find amusement in making me suffer. I was a skinny kid even if I was strong enough and tall enough for my age. He was more muscular and heavier. My best defense was to outrun him which I could do easily so he called me a chicken. That made me want to stand and fight, but then I would end up with a busted lip or a bloody nose."

"Or blackened eyes." Ben smiled gently at those long ago memories of trying to help his son through that stage.

"In one of those fights, his shirt got ripped. It wasn't too bad a rip, but two things happened that I will never forget. One was that he started crying. He said his pa was gonna give him a 'licking' as he called it for ripping his shirt. He was terrified. By what I saw through his ripped shirt, I had a reason to understand why. He had scars and scabs. It looked like he had been whipped. He had bruises too. I told Pa. He said we couldn't do anything about it."

"What happened? Why did you bring it up now?" Hoss needed an end to a story no matter what.

"Before we left that town, Drew was dead. He died in an 'accident' at his home. He supposedly fell and hit his head causing multiple injuries from which he couldn't recover."

"Well, how does someone fall and have more than one injury to his head?" But it only took a moment for Hoss to understand what had happened as did all the others. Drew had been beaten and died from his injuries. In most courts of the land, anyone who was injured during a punishment and subsequently died was considered to have died 'accidentally' and was not considered to have been murdered.

Diane was the next to speak. Joe may have met her at a dance and been attracted to her because of her blond hair, blue eyes, and the lilt of her accent as well as her graceful movement and refined manners and speech, but her words were the best evidence to all of them that Joe had chosen wisely and that she would fit in quite well in this family. "So if you are afraid this will happen to that little boy, what are we going to do about that?"

No one was sure what to say. Ben was the first to speak though. "I guess the first thing is to watch for evidence that they are hurting the boy. So far we have suspicion and nothing more. If we can get some proof, then we can step in to do something."

Insistent, Diane pressed for more. "How are we going to get the evidence?"

Looking at Adam, Hoss knew that answer as did his older brother who responded. "We need to have Harold spend more time with our sons playing. We need to get to know him better, and perhaps then he'll talk to us and tell us what we need to know."

"Boys, it won't be easy. It's his father and his mother. They may be hurting him, but he loves them too. If anything happens to them, who will he have? He's probably very frightened of everything. I think that the stories you've told me about him make a lot of sense now. Lots of times bullies are scared. They take out their frustrations on others probably so they don't feel so powerless. He's a lost little boy but also a dangerous one with that background. Keep that in mind too."

"Papa, does that mean that Hunter and me can play with Harold or not?"

"Hunter and I can play with Harold."

"You want to play with him?"

Adam rolled his eyes as his father and brothers laughed breaking the tension. It was almost a perfect imitation of the conversations that Adam and Little Joe had when Adam had tried to correct his grammar at that age. Hunter and Alex of course had no idea why the adults were laughing. Adam tried to explain it eliciting more laughter but finally getting the boys to understand. The family piled into carriages to head home then.

Over the next few months, Harold was invited on many occasions to play with Alex and Hunter. It meant that his mother didn't have to supervise him and she seemed very happy to hand him over to Hoss or Adam even for overnight stays. In fact, she and Jared seemed quite happy to have him gone for days at a time. When there were overnight stays, Hunter stayed at Adam's home with Harold in Alex's room. The three boys would sleep on the two bunk bed mattresses that Adam would put on the floor for such occasions. Side-by-side and covered with a large sheet, the two mattresses made a bed big enough for all three to sleep comfortably. Harold never removed his shirt to sleep keeping that and his longjohns on no matter the temperature. It convinced Adam that he was hiding injuries but he could hardly insist that the boy remove his clothing even if his son and Hunter stripped off their clothing and pulled on a nightshirt each time. He offered one to Harold each time, and each time it was politely refused. That was one thing they all noted though. Harold's manners improved markedly over those months spent under the supervision of Adam and Hoss.

There were no more incidents with Jared either and no more threats of any kind against Adam. Jared had a surly kind of greeting whenever he saw Adam but there was no more of the disrespect, and he followed the rules at work causing no more trouble there. Hoss thought that perhaps he had lost his temper over what he perceived as being embarrassed by Adam's reprimand of him at work. It was a significant overreaction if that was all that it was though so Adam didn't let his guard down, and Charity reminded him too every time he left the house. Davis found that he liked staying at Adam's place so they had someone extra to keep watch too at night or when Adam was gone.

It all came to a head unexpectedly during a fun fishing outing. Adam and Hoss had the three boys fishing while Ben and Joe were entertaining the ladies in the cool shade of the pines further back from the shores of the lake. The plan was that there would be fish to roast over the fire for lunch. Of course, Hop Sing had packed plenty of food in the baskets knowing that sometimes those grandiose plans of catching enough fish by lunchtime to feed a dozen people didn't always work out.

Standing out on a flat rock in the lake, Adam was helping each of the boys to bait their lines and cast them out. They had a few small fish already but certainly not enough to feed a dozen people. Hoss was fishing from a rock closer to shore and had caught a few larger fish. Earlier, he had tossed the boys across the small opening between the rocks and Adam had caught them, but Hoss had been unwilling to try to jump that space himself. Adam and the boys were on a large rock surrounded by water. Alex had declared it their island. Harold said he was the king then, but Alex looked up and said that probably his father had to be the king. Harold had laughed and agreed. Things were going well until it was time to head back for lunch. Adam tossed the fishing poles and then the fish to Hoss. Next he tossed Hunter over because he said he was the heaviest and he had to do it while he still had the strength. The boys had laughed at that. Then he tossed Alex and Hoss caught him easily. Last up was Harold but when Adam grasped him to toss him, he must have grabbed him in a way that hurt him because Harold suddenly grabbed onto Adam causing the two of them to fall into the water. Hoss began to laugh so hard he fell down. Hunter and Alex sat beside him in near hysterics as Adam stood up with a soaking wet Harold. Water dripped from the two of them and weeds were hanging from various parts. Adam did his best to appear dignified as he walked up the shore toward the trees carrying his wet charge. It wasn't easy though with everyone there breaking into hysterical laughter too. He set Harold down, took off his hat, and then sat down to remove his boot.

""Harold, sit down, take off your boots. We're going to have to get these wet things off so they can dry."

"It's all right. They can dry right on me."

It was then that Adam noticed some blood on Harold's side. "You're bleeding. I don't know how that happened, but now we definitely need to get that shirt off so we can take care of whatever happened to you."

Looking terrified, Harold backed up and then ran for the trees shocking everyone. Hoss was going to go after him, but Adam held him back sliding his feet back into this wet boots. "Let me go. I think we've got a common experience here that may help. Let me go to him." Adam found Harold slumped down next to a tree and sobbing. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder and his heart nearly broke when Harold looked up at him with a look so hopeless and forlorn.

"My Pa's gonna kill me for this. He told me nobody was ever supposed to know or he'd kill me. I did my best to hide it. Now you know, don't you? He's gonna kill me."

"No, he won't. I won't let him hurt you ever again."

"How can you stop him? He's my Pa. He said nobody can stop him."

"I can. I will. Trust me. No one will hurt you like that again." Adam knelt down and wrapped an arm around Harold who stiffened at the unaccustomed feel of a man's arm around him like that. Slowly he relaxed as nothing bad happened. Adam pulled the boy closer to him with his other arm, and then gently picked him up to carry him back to the family. He wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he had made a promise, and he always kept his promises.

Chapter 5

Before Adam got out of the trees, Charity was there to greet him with two blankets and a few soft towels. "We'll take care of the two of you here in the trees where there's some privacy, don't you think. Harold, is that all right with you?"

With his face buried in Adam's shoulder it was difficult to hear his answer but he clearly shook his head affirmatively. Adam moved to set him down then and slowly unwrapped the boy's arms from around his neck looking him in the face when he did so. Harold averted his eyes obviously ashamed that he had been crying. Adam reached up and used his thumbs to wipe the tears from the boy's cheeks.

"There's no shame in crying when there's a good reason for it."

"I bet you never cry."

"I have."

"When did you ever cry."

Pursing his lips and then blowing air out through them, Adam knew he had to open up in order to gain the boy's trust. "Almost three years ago we were going to have a baby and the baby died. I cried then. Charity cried too. We cried together."

Looking at him to gauge whether he was telling the truth or not, Harold saw that his eyes glistened with unshed tears. He looked to Charity and saw the same brightness in her eyes. That was a revelation to him that adults could cry too. He thought that adults only lost their tempers and got very violent when they were unhappy.

"You're still sad."

"Yes, something like that takes a long time to go away. Maybe it never will, but it gets easier to live with each day, and now we have Carrie too. Having Alex and Carrie to love helps."

"What did you do with your baby when she died?"

Charity knelt down next to Harold then. "We buried her in the garden. She wasn't but a small thing hardly bigger than my hand, but she was our baby. We planted roses there. We think of her as Rose even though we never actually named her."

"When my Mama died, Pa threw the body in the river."

Shocked almost into speechlessness, Adam finally was able to respond. "But we saw your mother this morning when we picked you up to take you to church and then on this picnic."

"Oh, she ain't my real ma. She's a woman Pa got in a saloon to cook and clean and such. She acts like my ma and Pa calls her that, but she ain't my real one."

Exchanging glances over Harold's head as he peeled the wet pants from his legs with their assistance no longer worried what they would see, both Adam and Charity wondered what other secrets they might learn. That had been a great shock. There were more to come as Harold opened up to them. Adam helped him remove his shirt and then his long johns to the waist before asking Charity to turn away. She was already aghast at the scars as well as a few wounds and bruises on the boy. Adam helped him slip off the long johns, dry himself, and then wrap the blanket around his legs up to his waist. Then he and Charity tended to the wound that was bleeding before pulling the blanket up to the boy's shoulders.

"There, do you feel better now, Harold?"

"Yeah, I feel a lot better. My name ain't really Harold, you know."

"It isn't?"

"Nope. My name is James, I think. At least, that was the name I had before they said I had to be Harold. That was the name my Mama called me. Well, sometimes she called me Jimmy. I don't remember back any further than that. Maybe I had another name before that. Marvin used to be another name too. I forget right now what it was."

Growing ever more suspicious, Adam calmly asked another question. "Did your father have another name too?"

"I guess maybe. I mean, I only ever called him Pa so I'm not sure about that."

Keeping his voice calm and deliberate, as Adam undressed and dried himself, he asked more questions. "Where did you live before you came here?"

"We lived in a town. Then we had to leave in a hurry. We lived all over for a while. Mama got sick and died. Then we went to another town, and Pa was with these other men for a while and then we had to leave real fast again. Then we came here."

"Did you come over mountains to get here or over flat lands?"

"It was some of both, but mostly it seemed like mountains. It was a long way, and sometimes we didn't have enough water, and then we found this river. That's where Mama got sick."

"You seem to have a very good memory."

"Mama said I had a real good mind. She said I was gonna do big things one day."

"Yes, well right now, I think we all need to head back and have some lunch before Hoss eats it all."

Looking down at the blanket he wore, Harold, or James, wasn't so sure that he should head out to where the others were. Adam and Charity saw his indecision. Charity called for Hoss who came to them in a few minutes. It was clear that everyone had been wondering what had been happening. She asked Hoss to carry the boy out to the picnic and be careful not to dislodge the blanket.

"No, ma'am, I surely won't. We men got to make sure not to let the ladies see anything that would scare 'em now would we, Harold?"

"No, Hoss, we sure wouldn't."

Charity gathered up the wet clothing, and Adam followed behind holding his blanket tightly around him knowing that his wife or one of this brothers might think it quite funny to dislodge his blanket at least a little to try to embarrass him. Seeing his tight grip on the blanket and his look, Charity grinned as did Ben and Joe when they saw him. Charity spread the wet clothing out over bushes in the sun. Diane got up to help her and inquired about Harold hoping that he was all right.

"He is, and he isn't. We all have to talk later when the children aren't around."

Nodding, Diane looked as if she had expected that answer. With a few raised eyebrows and looks, Adam had more or less communicated the same thing to his brothers, father, and Pru. After lunch, Adam reclined against a tree ready to take a nap because he could hardly go anywhere wrapped in a blanket. After Charity nursed Carrie, she handed the baby to him, and he held her as she fell asleep, and he closed his eyes as well. Charity told Harold to go ahead and lay down next to Adam and rest until his clothing was dry enough to wear.

Two hours later, Charity woke Harold and told him that his clothes were dry enough to wear. Grabbing his blanket tightly to keep it securely around him, he went behind the tree to dress. He was smiling when he came back and still had a couple of hours to play before they would head back to the ranch. He knew too that he was spending the night at Adam's house so he was relaxed. With the children playing at the shoreline under the supervision of Joe and Diane, Ben and the others gathered by Adam who finished dressing and Charity who had Carrie again. It was time to discuss what Harold had told them. By the time they finished telling what they had found out, the whole group was as stunned as Adam and Charity had been when they first heard those things. By this time though they had been thinking about that information for over two hours and had drawn similar conclusions.

"Charity and I both think that there's a good chance that Jared is a wanted man. I'm going into town tomorrow with Harold or rather James to see Paul Martin and get a full report written on his injuries. Then we'll see Roy to see if we have enough to keep him away from his father. I'll ask Roy to check through his wanted posters and flyers to see if he has anything resembling Jared."

"He mighta come a long way. Ifn he came as far as it sounded like he did, he might have done bad things in California or even Colorado or someplace like that. Might not be a poster or flyer in Roy's office."

"Then he can send out wires asking about him. I'll pay the cost if necessary. Pa, if that doesn't work, I have another idea and I'll need your help."

"I'll do what I can. What do you need me to do?"

"For now, come into town with us tomorrow and agree to help as needed."

"I can do that, but, son, are you sure that you and Charity want to take on the responsibility of this boy? He's going to be a real handful."  
"I know that, but I made him a promise that no one would do that to him again. I keep my promises. I won't let anyone hurt him like he's been hurt. We'll find a home for him where he'll be properly cared for like a child should be."

"And if you can't?"

Charity moved to Adam's side. "We have room at our house if need be."

As planned then, the next day, Adam took Harold to Doctor Martin for a complete examination. Not only did Paul find the scars from more than one whipping, but he found evidence that the boy had broken ribs in the past and had a broken arm at least once. He could tell that by the feel of the bones in his left forearm that had healed while slightly displaced and could feel the thickness of the ribs on one side of the boy's chest. It wasn't enough proof to charge Jared with anything, but it would help if they could find something else. Unfortunately Harold was too young to press any kind of charge. No court would accept a charge by a child that young against a parent. Next, Adam went to Roy's office where he had Harold tell Roy what he had told Adam. Harold was reluctant but Adam said that Roy was like a father to him and a good father not like the one he had. They looked through Roy's wanted posters but found nothing resembling Jared. Roy agreed to send out wires seeking any information and letters as well but warned it could take some time to get any information back.

"Now from what we know, this here boy is in danger if he's got to go back to that home. How you planning on keeping him safe?"

"Roy, I was hoping you could help with that."

"Boy, you don't know how much I wish I could. I'd like to lock that man up and throw away the key, but there isn't a law in this whole country that would let me do that. I don't even have enough to say I gotta take the boy from him."

"Roy, what if I pressed charges?"

"What kind of charges could you press against him?"

"Not against him, against Harold."

"What? You gone plumb loco while I been sitting here? The boy is the victim here."

"Yes, he is, but you already said there isn't a law to protect him. You also know that usually it's friends and neighbors or family who step in and take care of things like this. Well, that's what I'm doing. Harold attacked my son with a wooden sword and caused an injury that bled. I want you to charge Harold with assault."

"Now, Adam, that's just crazy."

"Hear me out, Roy. I already talked this over with Pa and Harold. That's why they're not upset as you are. Harold is too young to sit in your jail. You would probably send an offender as young as he is back home with his parents except we know his mother is not his mother. Now what if an upstanding citizen was willing to be his guardian until his trial?"

With a smile as he began to understand, Roy leaned back in his chair. "You Cartwrights are always thinking and plotting about things. Now I see where this is going. Yes, I can charge young Harold here with assault. I'll have him placed in the custody of Mister Benjamin Cartwright until his trial. I guess you probably know the circuit judge isn't due here for another two weeks. You'll have to keep him with you until then, house him, feed him, and not let him go anywhere without your say-so and a responsible man in charge of him at all times. Is that clear, Mister Cartwright?"

"It is very clear, Sheriff Coffee. I always take my civic duty very seriously. I can promise you that young Harold here will not set foot off the Ponderosa except to attend church services for the next two weeks. He will be here when that circuit judge arrives in town."

Turning his attention to Adam, Roy offered one bit of information. "Now you do know that you have until the time of the trial to withdraw these charges. If he walks into that courtroom, those charges stand and he faces the judge."

"Yes, Sheriff Coffee, I am aware of that. I will let you know about that."

"I bet you will; I just bet you will. Well good day to you all, and I'll be sending you that bill for the wires, Adam. I'll send Clem out to tell Jared about his son. I don't suppose you would rather do that?" Ben and Adam remained impassive as Roy expected. "Didn't think so. Hard to know how a man like that is going to react. You keep your eyes open out there."

Despite the warning, walking out of Roy's office, Ben and Adam were smiling, but Harold wasn't so sure so he had to ask. "Does that mean I get to stay with you?"

Putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, Ben leaned down. "Yes, it does. Officially, I am in charge of you." Harold's face fell a bit at that news. "I am ordering you to spend the next two weeks at my son Adam's house and follow every rule there, or you will be hearing from me. Is that clear, young man?" Ben's gruff words were offset by his light tone and the merry look in his eyes.

Harold couldn't stop grinning. For the first time that he could remember, he felt happy and safe. He walked next to Adam to the carriage and climbed in sitting in the middle as he had on the ride in letting the two men get in beside him. He didn't mind being squeezed between them. It felt like security. It was a feeling that he had not had before but he liked it.

Chapter 6

At home, Adam had a different set of problems to face. Alex now had a full-time competitor for his parents' attention other than Carrie. He had adjusted to Carrie needing his mother's attention, but Adam now would have to give attention to Harold which was going to be more of an issue. In fact, it was likely that Harold was going to need a lot of attention. Alex was a very nice, intelligent, and generous boy, but he was also five-years-old and needed his father. Charity and Adam had to talk about that. It wasn't a problem the first night, but they knew it would surface so they had to discuss it. After they had the children settled for the night, and had Davis and another man on alert that there could be trouble, they had a chance to talk. Sitting at the dining room table, with all the windows shuttered tightly, they shared a dessert and talked quietly.

"Have you thought about what happens next?"

"On the ride home, James talked quite a bit. We started with that. He wants us to call him James or Jimmy like his mother did. He has good memories of her even if they're hazy. He doesn't know why she was sick. He told us that she moaned and cried a lot as she laid in bed. They ended up leaving town anyway and she was sick the whole time. I'm beginning to think she wasn't sick at all. It sounds more like someone who was beaten."

"Why do you say that?"

"He said she had a hard time walking. She was all bent over and held her stomach and her face looked funny. His words. But he was four years old at the time. He didn't have the vocabulary to describe anything more accurately nor does he remember it any more clearly than that. He did say that Jared gets very angry sometimes and then he drinks which makes him even angrier. He says they all have to hide when that happens. If you don't hide well enough, well, you've seen the results on that boy."

"Do you think that's what happened when you got shot at?"

"I was thinking about that. The shooter wasn't that far away and with a rifle. But if he was angry and had been drinking, that would make it more difficult to sight in on a target and then to keep the rifle steady. That may be why I'm still alive and not because of my lightning fast move to get off Sport and into cover."

"Oh, after all these years, don't shatter my hero image of you."

"You're sassy."

"I'd love to have more fun with you right now, but first we need to talk about James and about Alex. My heart goes out to James, but I see a lot of trouble for us if we try to keep him here. I don't want to put our children, especially Carrie, at risk. She is very vulnerable right now."

"You don't think that James would do anything, do you?"

"Adam, we have to be realistic. He's never had a decent home. He doesn't know how to act around others. Alex can stand up for himself, but Carrie can't and won't be able to for a long time. We don't know what kind of temper James has. We saw some of it when the boys played together. He's not shown any lately but he needs us desperately. He's on his very best behavior because of that."

"Pa has said something very similar. He thinks that once this is all settled, there could be some tough times with James and getting him settled in with a family. He thinks too that he belongs in a family where the children are older or where there are no other children."

"It might be best if the other child or children were female too, don't you think? That way there wouldn't be that competition. He needs a father very badly especially at his age."

"Yes, and here, he would be competing with Alex who needs the same thing. He's also just a bit older than Alex which wouldn't sit well with our first-born."

"Yes, but he needs you around for some time yet because you're the one he trusts. He'll trust whomever you tell him to trust. You said he talked to Paul and to Roy because you told him he could. I know he trusted your father because you said he should. Any solution to this has to include you."

"I'm confused a bit now. You want us to find him a family but you want me to continue to be part of his life. How can that be?"

"If you think about the things we've said, there's a perfect solution available."

Watching the small smile on Charity's face, Adam knew it had to be something very clever that he was missing. Then he got it and smiled too. "You are one smart woman. I'm so lucky that you agreed to marry me. Now, do you think they'll agree?"

"We have time. You said Roy had nothing on Jared yet, but we both know that's probably only a matter of time. There'll be something. Once he's out of the picture, then it will be a matter of getting a permanent family for James. We can work on that during this time. I think Alex will be all right with it as long as he knows it isn't permanent. It will be an extended guest kind of thing. There may be some small problems but nothing serious."

"Do you want to bring it up to them or should I?"

"I'll talk to her and you talk to him."

"Drop the idea rather casually?"

"That's what I was thinking. Let them kind of come together on it themselves."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we barrel in and tell them all the good reasons why they should make James part of their family."

"I like that. You have a plan and a back-up plan."

"I learned from the best."

"Let me show you how much I appreciate that compliment."

The kiss took them into their usual way of showing each other how much they appreciated the other and enjoyed their company. Both slept well then until Carrie let them know she needed attention. As usual, Charity got up with her, changed her diaper, and nursed her. By the time she came back to bed, Adam was soundly sleeping. Slipping into bed beside him, she slid back against him until his warmth enveloped her and he moved his arm around her unconsciously in his sleep.

In the morning, he awoke first and gingerly disentangled himself from Charity as he did almost every morning. He shaved and dressed. Then as Carrie was stirring, he picked her up, put a clean diaper and a clean gown on her settling her next to Charity for her morning feeding. Charity was groggy but opened her gown to let her daughter suckle and the two snuggled together as they did each day. Adam found that he often had a tear or two in his eyes as he watched that scene each morning and had to wipe his eyes with his handkerchief before he left the room closing the door gently. He checked the boys' room and both were still sound asleep. His usual practice was to have breakfast at the main house with his father, brothers, and Candy whenever he could so that they could talk over all of the ranch business. Having missed several of those meetings lately, he thought he needed to get to this one. Davis met him at the stable and told him everything was quiet so Adam told him that he had put on a pot of coffee, that breakfast would be ready at the usual time, and that there were bread and preserves the men could have with their coffee first. Both were appreciative that he showed that concern for them and headed for the house as soon as he rode out. In the trees southeast of Adam's house, Jared was very disappointed because he had expected Adam to ride toward the mill or town. Planning to bushwhack Adam on the way, Jared had instead to give up that plan and head to work instead as Adam rode in the opposite direction.

At the main house, the meeting was already started when Adam got there. Everyone was very serious surprising Adam with the intensity of the meeting. The men seemed a bit surprised to see him as well.

"I missed too many of these lately. I wanted to make this one and get back in the swing of things. What's got everyone so concerned because I can see it on all of you?"

"We've got fences down and cattle counts are down, or I should say the calf counts are down. We've been doing the roundup and branding, and we should have a lot more calves than we have. There's no evidence that they're being taken by any predators so something else is happening."

"Human predators?"

"With the fences down in spots, it seems the logical conclusion. Now Hoss and Joe said the three of you saw fences down on Todd's place too. My guess would be if we check with the other ranchers, we're going to find others having the same problem. Someone is coming in and taking the calves to build up a herd."

"And we think we know who that is, don't we?"

"Dadburnit, Adam, it's the only thing that makes sense. We know he ain't got many cattle over there, and he ain't got much pasture to support a big herd and get a lot of calves, but he's always talking about how he's gonna grow them calves and take 'em to market. The only way he gets a that big herd in a hurry is to take calves from other ranches and raise 'em up."

"He can't be doing this alone. It's only him and Marvin over there." Adam was a bit skeptical.

Ben looked around the table. "We discussed this before you arrived. We think that maybe Roy needs to do some checking on Jared around here and not just sending out wires to see if he's wanted elsewhere. Joe has to go to town to see about some things for his wedding. We thought that perhaps the two of you could go see Roy and talk to him about this."

Turning his attention to Joe, Adam had to smile despite the tone of the conversation. "That's right. It's less than two weeks now, isn't it. Yes, I would be more than happy to go to town with you to do that. Joe's good with guns too. I'll need someone like that watching my back because Jared may be gunning for me after yesterday's news. I thought he might show up last night or this morning, but he didn't. The day isn't over yet though so I'm not sure yet what will happen."

"Good, Candy will take some men out to see about repairing the fences and doing some herd counts, and Hoss will take a man to see if they can find any tracks where men have taken our stock. We'll need Davis back here to handle the roundup and branding. Can you hire some men to do the sentry duty at your house? We could use all the hands working on the ranch right now."

"While I'm in town, I'll hire men to do the sentry duty. I'll keep the one man at the house today and send Davis here to work the roundup. He was getting used to staying at my place though. He may not like moving back here."

Ben was agreeable. "He can still stay at your place when he's not out on the range. I have no problem with that. For now, he can stay there at night as long as he takes charge of all the branding during the day."

The men headed out then to their assigned tasks with Adam and Joe having a pleasant time going to town with a chance to talk about Joe's upcoming marriage and Adam's complex problem of what to do with James. When Joe heard Adam's idea about where he and Charity thought James would do well, he liked the idea.

"You know, Diane and I were talking too and thought that he might cause some problems if you thought to keep him as part of your family. This makes a whole lot more sense. Diane is going to like the idea too. She was worried about him. This will make her happy for him."

Chapter 7

In town, Adam went with Joe on his errands picking up the ring Joe had ordered for Diane as well as a necklace he planned to give to her to wear on their wedding day. Adam complimented him on his fine taste in choosing the elegant necklace, and Joe thanked Adam for the example he had set in purchasing jewelry for Charity for five years. That brought smiles to both of them. They headed to Roy's office after that and were surprised to find he wasn't there. Clem said he was over at the bank and would probably like to talk with them there if they wanted to try to catch him while he was still there. It was all very intriguing so they hurried to the bank and found Roy in the bank president's office. The bank president was assuring Roy that everything he had told him was the complete and honest truth. Roy had him repeat the gist of it to Adam and Joe.

"Jared Butler paid cash for his ranch. It was cheap. We hadn't been able to get a buyer since we foreclosed on it. It needed a lot of work and you both know that it doesn't have very good land unless it rains a lot. In dry years, it can't support more than a few hundred head. That's not much so most ranchers weren't interested. We were looking to get rid of it when he walked in with cash."

"So he doesn't have to make payments?" Joe was stunned.

Watching the brothers, Roy could see that Adam was thinking. "So if he doesn't need money for payments for the ranch, he's working at our mill to get money to buy something else. What could that be?"

"Now, that's what got me over here to ask this here question that you just heard the answer to. I was asking around town a bit about Jared and I got a mighty strange bit of information over to the general store and from Cass' mercantile too. Seems that Jared's been buying up supplies like he's got a big spread only we both know he don't even have one man working for him. It's just him and his older boy. He only has but that one other boy and his wife to feed, but he's in town here buying a load of supplies every week. He bought blankets too, tinware, pots and pans, and a case of whisky too. Buys quite a lot of whisky, too much for even for a hard drinking man. Folks was wondering if he was selling to someone else."

"We're missing stock, mostly calves if we're right. We think Todd is too, and probably other ranchers. They're rustling our young stock, probably raising them in remote parts of the ranch staying out of sight. Based on what you've said, it seems like it might all be fitting together like a big puzzle."

"Now why would they do it like that?"

"No one would know if he keeps them out of sight. He's got men working for him but no one sees them of if they do, they don't know that they're working his spread. Probably look like a couple of drifters. Meanwhile he has to feed them and pay them until he can sell what he's stolen and get some money in the bank. He's working for us to get cash. That's why he told us he only needs money for the first year's payments. It's a good plan, but they're too greedy, and they're sloppy. If they had taken smaller numbers and fixed the fences after they took them, we would still be wondering if we just had a bad year for calves. It happens. With the fences down and our numbers so low, we were looking for another reason. They could have done this every year for a long time and we might never have suspected them."

"But they took too many and left a trail."

"That's about it, Roy. If he had taken say twenty from us, and perhaps five or ten from some of the other ranches, they could have had up to a hundred fairly easily. That would have added up to a nice income with no investment except some time. He's taken probably three times that many or more. It means he has to hire men to help and work to get money to keep it going, and they've left evidence behind."

"I don't know that I got enough to send a posse onto his place."

"Hoss is out looking for tracks. If he finds them, you'll have enough. We'll let you know."

"Thanks, Adam. I ain't got nothing back from those wires, and the letters probably only started arriving at places about now."

"Well, let me know too if you find out anything. The sooner we can put him behind bars, the better for everyone."

"You're that sure he's gonna end up there?"

"Roy, you've had a lot of experience with criminals. Aren't you?"

"I got to admit I'm darned suspicious, and I'd sure like to take a look round his place. You tell Hoss that ifn he finds them tracks of stock heading on over to Jared's place, I want to know that right off. I don't want you all heading on over there yourselves. This is a matter for the law so you come tell me. You can ride with me, but I got to be the one in charge. Is that clear to you?"

"It's clear, Roy. We wouldn't have it any other way. Right, Joe?"

"Uh, right, but I guess we'll have to be sure Pa agrees with us." Seeing Roy's look, Joe quickly amended his statement. "Oh, I only meant to say that we have to be sure to tell Pa that we agreed with what you wanted. I'm sure he'll be agreeable."

"Say, Adam, how's that boy settling in on the Ponderosa?"

"He's fine. He was sleeping when I left the house this morning, but I'm sure he and Alex are having a good time today."

"So he's at your house. Kinda figured that was what was gonna happen. You fixing on keeping him there with you?"

"Only for the short term." Then with Joe grinning beside him, Adam told Roy the idea that he and Charity had about the long term placement of James that they thought would work out the best and why.

"Sounds like a good plan to me. He'll still be close to you, but he'll have a good father all to himself. He needs that. Good. I hope it all works out."

After bidding farewell to Roy and getting a quick lunch, Adam and Joe met with a few men that they knew were reliable and hired them to work to protect Adam's home. They often worked as temporary deputies for Roy so they could be trusted. Next the two brothers headed out to the mill. They wanted to check on things and also to make sure that Jared was at work. Adam thought he would enjoy the ride home a lot more if he knew that Jared was at work and not sighting in on his back. At the mill, he did his best not to let Jared see him while he spoke with the plant manager who wanted to fire Jared because he was back to making a lot of trouble that day and the day before. Adam assured him that Jared wouldn't be there much longer but that it was better to have him there where they could keep an eye on him. He promised the whole crew a bonus once Jared was gone which brought a smile to the plant manager's face.

"Can I sort of let that rumor go round?"

"If no one repeats it to Jared, it would be fine."

"Heck, nobody talks to him unless they got to. Thanks, Mister Cartwright. That should bring up the morale just fine. Any idea how long we got to put up with him?"

Looking at Joe, Adam shrugged. Joe spoke first. "I'd say a week might be a good guess."

Adam nodded. "That's probably about right. If we're lucky, maybe less."

"Good. We can handle that. At least there's an end in sight."

"We have to be very careful now though. He may be sensing that things aren't going his way. By now you know that we took his younger son from him. He's mad about that. If he gets a feeling that we're checking on him or watching him, there's no telling what he may do next. The key is to try to act as normally as possible around him but at the same time watch him. If he seems to be doing anything out of the ordinary, be sure to let us know."

"Adam, we better go so we're well on our way before any of the men see us and say anything."

"You're right. Let's go. We probably stayed here too long already."

In some ways they had been there too long because Jared became aware that they had been there. However that they had not wanted to be seen was interpreted by him as Adam being afraid of him. That made him feel good about things and he left work in a better mood than when he arrived. When he got home, he wasn't as happy though. Marvin had some news for him that was unsettling.

"I rode out to work with the men today like you said, Pa. We saw Hoss Cartwright and some other man snooping around near our fence lines with the McCarren ranch. They seemed real interested with the spots where we brought some of them calves in."

"You said you had brushed all them tracks out real good."

"I did. I brushed them out just like you said. I brushed them one way and then the other. I threw sticks and stuff over them too after I brushed them. Ain't no way anybody could see any calf tracks anywhere."

"What about your tracks? Did you do the same to all of your tracks?"

"I think so. Pa, what if I didn't? What's anybody going to care about one set of boot marks or one set of horse tracks?"

That earned Marvin a stinging slap across the face and string of curses. "That's all they need. All they ever need against a man like me is suspicion. Next they'll be talking to the sheriff and have him out here snooping around. Now we gotta move these calves somewhere so they can't be found. It's gonna be a lotta work." Jared dropped his head as he rubbed his neck. "I still need the money from that mill job. At least for a while yet, I can't quit. You're gonna hafta help Mort and Dobie move them calves and you better be sure to cover them tracks better this time. You take them back to those box canyons we found and get 'em in there. I'll send Mabel with you. She can do the cooking and such, and she can start earning her keep by bringing grass to them calves. There ain't enough in them box canyons. There's water but not enough grass. You hear me, boy. You got that?"

"Yes, Pa, I got it. We move the calves to the box canyons. We brush out the tracks so nobody can find them. Mabel comes along to do the camp chores and such and she can get the grass to feed the calves. Pa, do we take all the calves?"

"No, of course not. You leave the ones we own right where they are. You come back after you get the rest taken care of, and you're gonna hafta handle them on your own. You got that?"

"I got it, Pa. That's a lot of work. I'm not sure I can do all that."

"Listen, boy, you're almost fourteen. You want to make that next birthday of yours, you're gonna get that work done, ya hear me?"

Jared had more pointed reminders for Mabel when he told her what she had to do. Then he sent them on their way before going inside to eat his supper and have something to drink. He had some thinking to do too as to what he was going to do next. This had all seemed like a great plan when he started, but it had turned out to be more work than he liked and a lot more trouble. He wished there was a way to get money out of the deal a lot faster so he could move on. He didn't like that Adam Cartwright had stolen his younger son away from him. It wasn't that he loved the boy, but it was the principle of the thing. Nobody took anything from him. He took things from them. That's when he smiled. He had an idea. While they were busy getting ready to raid his ranch to catch the rustlers thinking that was his big plan, he was going to come up with a new plan. It was going to be a plan to take something from those Cartwrights to get even with them and get him free of all these people who were dragging him down with responsibilities. He spent the rest of the evening planning out his new endeavor.

On the Ponderosa, Hoss had reported back what he had found.

"I found a lot of what looked like brushed out tracks from our place and from Todd's place. Now you know I can't tell Roy what those tracks were. I found one set of boot tracks and one set of horse tracks. That's it. They had tried to cover that they had brushed out the tracks but they weren't very good at it. From the boot prints and the hoof prints, I'd say the rider was a woman or a boy. There wasn't much weight there. Coulda been that young Marvin. Can't be sure."

It wasn't enough for a posse but was enough probably to get Roy to go out to Jared's ranch and question him and perhaps have a look around. Hoss and Joe decided that while he was doing that, they might have a more informal look around too. Candy decided he should go with them. Ben told them to be careful. Adam would take the information to town the next morning to see if Roy would go to the ranch, and Adam would volunteer to go with him. Jared should be at work so they would tell Mabel they would be taking a look around. At least that was the plan. They all went to bed thinking it was a good plan not knowing that on Jared's ranch, they had already started to move the stolen calves that night.

Chapter 8

The next morning, Adam went by the McCarren ranch on his way to town to let Todd know what was happening and what they planned to do. Todd wanted to ride along to which Adam was agreeable. It would seem more of a united front that way when they went to Jared's ranch and not like the Cartwrights had Roy doing their bidding. Of course, that meant that Adam got to spend some time talking about James and what had happened in that situation since they had last talked. Todd brought up something that Adam in his concern for the younger boy hadn't spent much time considering.

"Have you thought that by rescuing James, you might have made things worse for the older boy? I mean if this man has the temper you say he has and has hurt those boys, he must be mad as heck about what you did. He can't do much to you so that leaves Mabel and Marvin. Out here, lots of people would look at Marvin as a young man but we both know that he's still a boy too. He works like a man but he needs a father's guidance and care still. It seems a shame that the two boys are separated too. They should be together. They're all they really have for a family with their mother dead and their father as good as dead as awful as he is."

Riding quietly lost in thought for a short time, Adam took a deep breath and pulled Sport to a halt. Todd stopped and looked at his brother-in-law wondering what had happened. He saw that Adam was very sober but also had the hint of a slight smile playing on his lips.

"Todd, I was supposed to drop this hint and let you think about it. Charity was going to do the same with her sister and hope the two of you would think it was a good idea to adopt James into your family. Your daughter is older than James so she could take care of herself, and as a girl, she wouldn't be competing for your attention. I would still be around although as his uncle not his father. I think James is hoping that I will want to be his father because of all I've done to protect him so far, and at some point, I am going to have to disappoint him. Now you have brought up Marvin and his need for protection, a family, and that the two boys ought to be together."

When Adam paused, Todd's mind was whirling. He was at first shocked because he had thought like many that Adam planned to take James as part of his family. He couldn't understand why he wouldn't so that was his first question. After Adam explained the reasons why he and Charity were concerned about that, Todd agreed that they had probably assessed the situation correctly. He and Virginia had not had any more children despite both of them desiring more. No one knew why of course but Virginia was older so perhaps that was why. The thought that he could have two sons was very appealing. Adam cautioned him not to get too carried away with that thought alone but to think of how those boys had been raised and the difficulties there would be in getting them to learn how to live good Christian lives.

"Adam, Virginia is great with children. She's so kind and patient. You've seen that in her. She could help James a lot. I don't have that kind of experience, but I've worked with a lot of young hands on the ranch. I have to say I think I've done a good job with some of them. I think I could do the same with Marvin and I would have even more time with him because he would be in the same house with me. Adam, I'm going to talk to Virginia about this as soon as we're done with this other business. I can't make any promises but right now, I'm thinking it should happen. That man should not have those two boys. They belong in a decent family, and no matter what anyone says about me. I'm a decent man and we have great friends and family to help us."

"Todd, you are more than a decent man. I can say right now that I have never been more proud to call you my friend. Now, let's get going. We've got a lot to do today."

When they got to Roy's office and explained what Hoss had found, Roy did agree that he would ride out to ask a few questions hoping that Mabel might say something or that Marvin would. On the ride to the ranch, Todd told Roy what Adam had suggested. Keeping a straight face all through the telling, Roy never let on that Adam had told him that idea before he had told Todd. When Todd wasn't looking, Adam and Roy shared a knowing smile. At the ranch, they were very disappointed though to find no one at home. They took a short ride around and eventually found Marvin tending to a small herd with a normal looking number of calves with the cows that were there. The large bruise on Marvin's face got their attention. Roy asked.

"Now what happened to your face there, boy? That looks mighty painful."

"Nothing much. I bumped into a stall post in the barn this morning. That's all. I'm kinda clumsy, I guess. That kind of thing happens to me all the time."

"I'm real sorry to hear that, son. Now, do you know your neighbors here, Todd McCarren and Adam Cartwright?"

"I seen 'em around."

Dismounting, Todd walked over to where Marvin was standing. Marvin stepped back as if he worried what would happen, but Todd reached out his hand to greet the young man. Almost hesitantly, Marvin took his hand.

"It looks like you know what you're doing out here. Those cattle are calm and look well cared for. You do good work. I could sure use a man like you on my spread."

"You could?"

"I sure could. Of course, you're stuck here, but if you ever have a chance to leave or want to leave for any reason, you are welcome at my place. Know that you have a home there if you ever need one. You know where my place is, don't you?"

"Yessir, I do. I seen your place when I was out riding a few times." Embarrassed a bit then because he had admitted something he shouldn't have known, Marvin stopped talking.

Todd ignored the faux pas and kept going. "Yes, you can come by day or night. We're friendly folks and we would never turn anyone away who needed a place to stay no matter when they got there. You remember that. You are always welcome at our place no matter what, all right?"

"All right, sir. Thank you. That's good of you to say."

"I'm not just saying it, Marvin. I mean it. Now, good-day to you. We'll be heading back."

As Todd rode away with Adam and Roy, Marvin wondered at the conversation. It seemed as if they knew how miserable his life was. It has sounded like an invitation to run away. Adam Cartwright had been there. He was the one who had rescued Harold from this mess. Had he brought in someone to rescue him? Marvin began to hope that was true and think about the possibilities. He dreamed of working for a man like Todd McCarren who shook your hand instead of slapping your face, who talked to you like a real person, and smiled at you. He had nothing left here. He began to think of how he could leave with Jared knowing where he was. The more he thought about it, the more he realized it wasn't going to be difficult at all. For the first time since his mother had been alive, he smiled. He had a plan. He needed to see Hoss Cartwright or some of those other men riding near again so he could put his plan into action. Once his father was out of the way, he had a place to go. He would get to see his brother again, and he wouldn't have to worry if he would live to see the next day. It was frightening thinking about defying his father, but he had to do it, and that handshake from Todd McCarren had started the process. For a very long time, he had wanted to fight his father and the things he made him do, but his father was a formidable man. Now though, Marvin felt that he wasn't alone. He had others who wanted that same fight.

Nothing much happened the next day as storms rolled through all day. Wind, rain, and lightning kept everyone indoors most of the time except for those who had to be outside working or who had to travel home after work. Drenched from his ride, Jared was in a foul mood when he arrived home. Marvin wasn't back yet so Jared left his wet horse in the stable for his son to groom when he got back with his own wet horse. He headed to the house and then remembered that he had sent Mabel to work with the two men hiding the calves and helping to keep them fed. There would be no warm supper, no one to warm his bed, and no one on whom he could vent his frustrations until Marvin arrived home except he knew the boy had a way of sensing these moods of his and was unlikely to show up in the house that night. He stomped around for a while, grabbed a bottle of whisky for a companion, and spent the evening with it. As expected, Marvin groomed and fed both horses, secured the stable, and then climbed into the hayloft where he had made a secure hiding place for himself. He had spent many nights there feeling badly for his little brother who couldn't escape the house and their father's temper. He felt good that Harold was finally free of it, and he leaned back and tried to remember those prayers his mother had taught him so he could pray that he would be delivered from this hell on earth too.

On the Ponderosa, plans were being discussed with all family members and Candy. The children had been put to bed. Charity didn't like one part of the plans and said so. Adam tried to reassure her that all precautions were being taken, but she was still unhappy that he was going to be in a vulnerable position. Diane wasn't there or she would likely have been as unhappy because Joe was going with Adam. Hoss and Candy were taking some men and going on another mission with the hope that by the end of the next day, they might have resolved the worst of the problems with Jared Butler.

"Now, you're sure that he's gonna try for the payroll?"

"Hoss, some men at work got mad at him and they had words. They spouted off at him that he was probably going to get fired, but he told them that it wouldn't matter because by the end of the week, I would be sorry I messed with him. He said he would have taken from me the two things I valued most, and he would be gone."

"Wouldn't those things be Charity and your children?"

"It would be if you think like me or like you or any of the people in this room. That's what the men in the plant thought too so they told the manager. They thought that he was going to go after my family especially Alex and Carrie or possibly Charity. To be safe, we're staying here tonight, and they're staying here tomorrow. Pa will be watching over them until this plays out. The men I hired will be here too. But no, try to think like Jared. He doesn't value his children and apparently didn't value his wife. He likes money and himself."

Nodding, Hoss looked around at the rest. "You all think so too, dontcha? He knows Adam brings the payroll to the mill every two weeks on a Friday. Tomorrow is payday. But why change his plans now? Why would he do something like that now?"

For that question, Ben answered. "Adam and Todd went out to his place with the sheriff. He may have seen men looking around near his place or Marvin or Mabel may have seen them and told him. He must know by now that we suspect him of the rustling. He already lost James and could face some legal consequences there if we can ever prove anything against him. Even if James is very young, Jared has to worry about what he might have said by now. He doesn't have time to sell those calves or that ranch to get his money."

"So he's like that cornered mountain lion. He's gonna come up ornery and mad as can be. We gotta be ready for him to do anything, don't we? Aren't we worried about that other boy over there?"

"We are, but I told you what Todd told him. Todd has talked to Virginia now, and they agree. If it works out, they'll take both boys, but no matter what, Todd will take Marvin in. He's been watching for him hoping he'll come on over."

"You know, when we ride on over there tomorrow, maybe we oughta take Todd with us. He can ask Marvin ifn he wants to join up with us. What dya think about that?"

Adam and Joe grinned as Ben put a hand on Hoss' shoulder. "Asking Todd to go with you and if he would ask Marvin to join up with you is a marvelous idea. It will give the boy the chance to get out of there if he wants it. He's had time to think about Todd's offer. He's a boy, but he needs to make this decision. It's going to make a big difference in the rest of his life, and I can't think of a better pair of men to help him make that choice than you and Candy. Remember though that you are asking him to turn on his father. That's going to be a hard step for him to take. If necessary, let him leave with Todd. Don't push him to betray his father if he's reluctant."

Waiting to hear if anyone had any additional objections or questions, Ben asked if everyone was ready to get some sleep. "So tomorrow we're up early. Now Adam and Joe, I want you to be sure to give Roy time to head out and get his men in position before you leave town. We'll have our men in position by then too. No matter where Jared goes, he's going to be watched, but you two need to keep a close watch. In something like this, we have to be ready for the unexpected."

With that, they all headed to their beds to get some sleep although everyone knew that there would be some tension to banish before they could rest easy. Adam had hoped to make love with his wife, but instead had to soothe away the tears. Charity fell asleep in his arms after crying in his arms as he reassured her that he would be very careful. He wondered at her emotional reaction but she was only a few months from having delivered Carrie so he thought it was still probably that. He closed his eyes and hoped that the baby wouldn't wake too soon.

Chapter 9

By dawn the next morning, Jared Butler was up in the trees near Adam's house. His plan was to trail him to town, wait for him to get the payroll from the bank, and follow him from town taking him by surprise on the road. He guessed he could kill him, take the money, and be on the road to somewhere before anyone had any idea what he was doing. He smiled as he thought about his plan. He thought that they were going to be moving against his rustling operation without any idea that he had changed his whole strategy for getting some money and getting revenge at the same time. However by seven, he was getting concerned about what was happening. There was no smoke coming from the chimneys in the house not even the kitchen. There was no light there and only two armed men who made periodic forays about the place but did their best to keep out of sight too. He waited another half-hour, and when nothing more happened, he made a short ride through the cover of the trees toward town. He saw what he feared, as between town and the mill, men were moving up along the ridgeline secreting themselves in cover. He swore softly to himself wondering how they could possibly suspect that anyone had made plans to get that payroll today. On a hunch, he turned back and made a wide circuit so that he couldn't be detected. By late morning he was nearing his ranch only to see a large group of riders heading toward the box canyons with none other than Marvin leading them. He swore again. He had been outwitted at every turn. He had nothing except his life and his freedom at this point. Not even daring to head back to his house to get extra clothing, ammunition, whisky, or other supplies, he was stuck with what he had taken with him that morning. Luckily he had planned to travel, but he had also planned to have money with him. He knew then that the first traveler he encountered was going to be a very unlucky man. He wheeled his horse and turned toward Carson City. For the time being, he was going to cut his losses and run, but he swore to himself that he would be back. No one did this to him and got away with it.

Riding to town with Joe, Adam wondered if he had planned for every contingency worrying that he had not. With a viper like Jared, there was always the risk that he was going to do something unexpected which was the greatest worry. He was also concerned about James, who despite being sheltered from what they were doing, had heard enough to know that they were taking action against his father or at least precautions. That morning as Adam had prepared to leave the house, James had asked if he could make a request. Adam had asked what it was.

"Could you try not to hurt my Pa too much. I know he can be bad, but he's my Pa. I only got but the one, and I don't want him to die. Mama already died, and I don't even know where Marvin is."

Putting an arm around the boy, Adam had reassured him that he would not harm Jared unless he had to do something to protect himself. "If he will be reasonable, no one has to get hurt."

"I don't think my Pa knows how to be like that. He gets real mad. When he gets real mad, you gotta be careful. Don't let him hurt you. Please don't let him hurt you."

"James, I won't. That's why Joe is coming with me. And I saw Marvin two days ago. He was all right. Mister McCarren told Marvin that he could come live there if he wanted to."

"But if Marvin goes to live there, then will he still be my brother?" James had a very worried look. He had lost so much already. He was scared that he could lose even more.

"He'll always be your brother, no matter what. You want to be with Marvin, don't you?" "Yes, I want Marvin. I miss him. He tried to help me sometimes. But I want you too. You won't send me away, will you? You won't send me back to Pa, will you?"

Adam pulled James closer to him to let him know he would always be protected so that it wasn't only his words but his actions that sent a message. "No, never. You will always have a good and safe family. I will see to it, and I'll always be around, but maybe if you want to be with Marvin, there's another way. We'll talk when I get back today. I know you're so young, but there's a decision you're going to have to make. You can talk to Charity too if you're worried. She can talk with you too about Marvin. She knows what I know about him."

Looking back at Charity who was holding Carrie, James didn't look so sure about that. "But she's a woman."

Smiling, Adam talked loud enough for the others to hear. "She certainly is a woman, but she is very smart. She knows all about a lot of things. She can talk to you about Marvin and about him possibly living with Todd's family. My Pa can talk to you about it too. It will give all of you something to talk about while we're gone. I hope to have good news when I get back."

Hoss leaned over then to add his thoughts. "I hope to have good news for you too. Things are gonna start looking better and better for you around here. You just remember that. We're all gonna see to that. You trust us, right?"

James nodded. He did trust this family. So far everything they had said had been true. He had staked everything he had on them being truthful, and it had worked so far. He crossed his fingers and hoped it would continue. As Adam walked out the door, both Ben and Charity saw those crossed fingers he held tightly behind his back as Adam smiled at James and at Alex before he bid them all a cheery goodbye and left. Over the next couple of hours, both James and Alex got a long lesson on uncles, cousins, and adoption and what it all meant. They had lots of questions, and Ben and Charity were very patient in explaining all of it to them even though some things had to be explained in several ways and more than several times. By lunchtime, they seemed to have understood most of it. They would probably need repetition of some of the ideas but the thought that James could be reunited with Marvin, live in a family with him, but still have Adam close by as an uncle was slowly seeming to be acceptable to James. Alex seemed to like that idea and began to try to convince James it was the best for both of them because they would each have a father all to themselves then instead of having to share one. Ben and Charity smiled a bit at Alex's personal agenda in his persuasive argument, but it did seem to help sway James so they said nothing about it.

About that same time, two major developments relating to James' future were taking place. One was that Adam and Joe made it to the mill with the payroll without anyone making any kind of attempt to rob them. None of the men concealed along the way ever saw anyone that whole morning. The money was put into the pay envelopes and readied for the afternoon payout. They waited and when nothing happened, the men were paid, and the mill was shut down for the weekend. Roy rode up to the mill as they were preparing to leave.

"I sent all the men I had hired back to town. Ain't nothing happening here today. Now what you told me made sense. I can't see where we got it wrong."

"I don't either, Roy. Somehow, we miscalculated. I hope Hoss and Candy are having better luck catching the rustlers."

That was the other development. As Joe and Adam mounted up to ride for home and Roy was about to leave, they saw a wagon approaching. The outriders clearly included Hoss so they waited to find out what had happened. Candy and Hoss were riding with the wagon that was driven by one of the Ponderosa hands with Mabel sitting beside him. There was no one else with them. Adam was the first to address the new arrivals.

"Don't tell me they all got away?"

"Well, we met up with Marvin, and he took to Todd right off just like we thought he might. He told us everything that Jared had said for him to do. Then he led us to the box canyons where the rustled stock was being held. Soon as we got near there with the men, two men hightailed it outta there like their tails was on fire. They had a good enough head start on us that there wasn't much point in chasing 'em. We didn't have enough men either to chase them and to get the stock back."

"So we got all our stock back?"

"Yup, Joe, every one of 'em. Course some got the wrong brand on 'em. We'll have to sort 'em all out later. Some are Todd's too. Some probably belong to other ranchers. We'll figure that all out in time. He had calves and some yearlings mostly."

"And your guest here?" Adam tipped his hat to Mabel who smiled almost involuntarily.

"Well, older brother, seems she ain't so happy with ole Jared anymore either. Oh, and his name ain't Jared, Roy. He's Cyrus Reed. Mabel here tells us that he's wanted in Stockton California for the murder of his wife and in a few other towns for robbery. She thinks maybe there might be a few other murder charges too but ain't sure. Ifn you send out wires with that name, you oughta get posters with his name and picture. She didn't know about all that stuff when she agreed to go with him. She was only trying to get out of a job she never wanted. Then when she wanted to leave him, he told her what he done with his wife and threatened her with the same."

"James said she hurt him."

"Yup, she admits she done wrong, but says it was never more than a slap or two. She ain't the one who broke his arm or ribs. She says his pa did that. All she wants is to get out of here. I figure we can take care of that for her, can't we?"

With a look that conveyed good riddance, both Adam and Joe nodded. Roy said he would need her statements and cooperation, and then he would get her a stage ticket out of town. He guessed one to Carson City would get her far enough away so she could look for a job and a place to live. She agreed that would be acceptable. Adam asked about Marvin then.

"He done went home with Todd. He said he'd stay there as a hand unless Todd brings James there. Then he'll move into the house and be part of the family for James' sake. I guess he done a lot of thinking on this. Todd was agreeable to it. I think Todd's pretty sure James will be joining his family. I sure hope Pa and Charity worked their magic on him today so he understands. He's mighty young to have to face all this."

"He's already faced worse, Hoss. He'll get through this."

"What happened here? You get that varmint?"

"Nothing happened?"

"Nothing? Ya mean he got away?"

"Roy will look for him now, but we need to head for the ranch to be sure there's no trouble there."

Both Joe and Hoss agreed with Adam on that count. Roy took charge of Mabel as the three brothers headed back home. There had been no trouble on the ranch and no sign of Jared either. After James greeted Adam with a rather mixed style of greeting, Ben explained to him what they had been discussing for much of the day. Adam pulled Alex aside for a moment.

"Son, I need to talk with James one more time about his father so I need you to be understanding about me not spending time with you right now. After I talk with him, then I want to talk with you and you can tell me anything you need to tell me or say anything you want to say. All right?"

"It's just this one time?"

"I can't make a promise on that, but I think so. I think we're getting close to getting this

settled permanently."

"Good. It's all right then. I'll wait."

"You talk with your Uncle Hoss and Uncle Joe about what happened today. I bet they have a few stories to tell especially your Uncle Hoss. I think you're going to want to hear those stories."

That seemed to pacify Alex for the moment. Charity gave Adam a thumbs up signal to let him know she thought he was handling things well. He took a deep breath and hoped it would continue as he asked James to step outside with him because they had to talk. On the porch, he sat on the bench and had James sit beside him. Wrapping an arm around him, he began to talk hoping to make James understand.

"For a long time, I wanted children very much. Then I met Charity and married her. When Alex was born, I was very happy. Charity and Alex made my life so much better than it was before. Then I was blessed with Carrie too. God was very good to me. I have a son who loves me, and I love him very much." Adam felt James squirm a little in his grasp and could imagine what the boy was thinking. "Now not every man is so blessed. Todd McCarren wanted sons very much too, but God didn't send sons to him the way he sent a son to me. However, now Todd thinks that God sent him sons perhaps another way. He wants so much to have a son that he can have by his side every day, to teach him, to love him, and to show him how to be a good Christian man."

"But doesn't he already have my brother, Marvin?"

"Yes, Marvin has agreed to go live there with Todd. But, you see, it isn't the same. Marvin is almost a man. He'll be out working with the men. He won't need Todd the way that Alex needs me. You see Alex still needs me a lot. I only have so much time to give and I owe that to Alex. Todd has a lot of time and no one to give it to. He wants to give it to you. If you go live with Todd as his son, he will give you all his love and time. He wants you so much. You know Virginia and their daughter. You know how happy all of them are, but they would be so much happier with boys in the family too. It would make the family complete."

"Like my family was missing girls."

"Well, yes, you could say that. And I would be your Uncle Adam because Virginia is Charity's sister. We would get together often. Alex would likely be your best friend as well as your cousin, and Alex's cousin Hunter would be your friend too."

"Would Hoss and Joe be my uncles too?"

"No, but Hoss would be your cousin because he's married to your cousin Prudence." James looked confused making Adam certain that he was muddying the waters too much. "You know, the simplest way to put it is that we think of Todd and Virginia as family and we see them a lot. They're neighbors too so we work together on a lot of things. You know how often we see each other. It would be more often if you boys were over there because Alex and Hunter would want to see you, and so would I."

"You would?"

"Of course I would. You're very important to me. I would never let you go completely. One way or another, you're part of my life now and forever."

"Forever?"

"Yes, no matter where you go to live, I want to make sure it's a good place to live in a good family, and I want to make sure that Marvin has a good life too."

"But it won't be at your house?"

"No, I don't think that's the best place for you. You had a long talk with my pa and with Charity about it. I'm sure they explained all that to you. So now, I know you're very young, and you shouldn't have to make such an important decision at your age, but you do need to do it. Will you go live with the McCarrens and Marvin?"

Looking up at Adam as if to be sure it was what Adam thought was best, James waited only a few seconds before nodding. He couldn't talk though. It was too much for him at that moment. Knowing that, Adam pulled him into a hug.

"You'll stay here with us tonight. Tomorrow, we'll all go over to the McCarrens and we'll see about getting you settled in there. I think that you're going to be happy there. James, if there is ever anything that you need to tell me, you know you can always come over to my place to talk to me, right?" Adam felt his answer more than he understood the mumbled yes. "And you can talk to my pa or to Charity too. You need to trust your whole family now. You have a lot of people on your side now, and we'll all fight for you. You're not alone any more."

James leaned back from Adam and smiled up at him. He knew that and it felt very good.

Chapter 10

When Adam came back in with James, the whole family seemed on edge waiting to see their demeanor to guess how things had gone. It was clear that James had been crying so no one said anything about it, but it was that unwelcome guest in the room until after dinner. James was the first one to address the issue. He looked at Ben and had a question.

"Adam is going to be my uncle."

"Yes, he is. He's looking forward to it very much."

"You're Adam's father."

"Yes, I am."

"Does that mean you're my grandpa?"

Looking at James' so very somber expression, Ben was at first inclined to explain to him all about relations and how he wasn't going to be actually related to him, but he couldn't. James was five-years-old, and in the past week, his whole life had been changed. There was no doubt that all of the changes had been for the better, but he faced even more changes in the future. He needed something to hang onto. Adam had agreed to stay in his life. Ben decided what he needed to do. "I guess I am. I'm the only one around here old enough to be a grandfather, and I've waited a long time to be one. I guess I could be a grandfather to you too. Do you like that idea?"

While Ben had thought and James had waited with some worry, Adam hadn't realized he had been holding his breath until his father answered and suddenly he released his breath and sucked in a lungful of air. He coughed and Hoss thumped him on the back earning a scowl that only got chuckles not only from Hoss but from Charity and eventually from Joe and Prudence too who guessed what had happened. Although Adam attempted to make his family think that he was in absolute control of his emotional state at all times, they knew better. Alex asked his father why the others were laughing.

"Sometimes apparently they think it's funny when a man has to cough."

That didn't make any sense to Alex, but it wasn't the only time that what adults did was perplexing. He let it drop because there were more interesting things happening. He wanted to know more about what was going to happen with James so he listened as his soon to be cousin talked with his grandfather. There was talk about how it would be up to a judge but how that shouldn't be a worry considering all the things that had happened. Todd was a good man who had never had trouble with the law, treated his wife and daughter with respect, and had a ranch to support a family. Then James asked a question that they had not thoroughly examined yet.

"Who gets Pa's ranch?"

That was a touchy subject and Charity decided it was her turn to handle one of the delicate situations. "James, you know that your father hasn't always followed the rules, don't you?" James nodded. "Do you know that he probably stole money from other people?"

"He did?"

"Yes, he probably did. If that's the case, the money he used to buy the ranch and the cattle wasn't his."

"What will happen then? Will those people come to live on the ranch?"

"No, they won't but they will want their money back. The ranch and the cattle will be sold probably. Most likely there will be an auction. The money will go to the people who were robbed."

"Oh. Can I get my stuff or will that be sold too?"

"We can get your stuff and anything that was your mother's."

"Can Marvin get his stuff?"

"I think Hoss said that Todd took him by there on the way home. He probably has his stuff already."

"Good. Marvin tried to help me sometimes, but Pa used to say he better watch it. He said Marvin might not make it to fourteen if he wasn't careful."

"That's terrible."

"I thought so too." James hesitated then but had to ask. "Ma'am, what did he mean when he said that. I mean, Marvin is going to have a birthday real soon. How could he not make it to his birthday? Was Pa gonna make him work on his birthday if he didn't listen to him?"

"Yes, James, maybe that was what he meant."

Feeling a bit bad about possibly misleading James, Charity felt better about it when she felt Adam's hand on her back rubbing up and down softly. She turned to him to see him nod and smile gently at her. She had said the right thing in his estimation. Ben and the others told her the same later after the children were in bed.

"My dear, that boy has had enough ugliness in his life. You did the right thing in protecting him from that one." Turning to Adam, Ben asked about the plans for the next day.

"I thought I would take him over to the McCarrens early. Todd and Marvin especially will be anxious to see him, and I would like as many of you to come with me as possible. The more of a big occasion we can make it, the better. The more he sees that we're all in this together, the easier I think it will be on him."

"What about Jared?"

"That's the scary part. We don't know where he is or what he is likely to do next. Pa, I want Charity and the children to stay here until this is settled. If he can't get at me, I wouldn't put it past him to come after my family. In fact, all of you could be at risk. He hates me the most, but we have all wrecked his plans. Every one of us is at risk although some more than others."

"What about Todd?"

"He's got men watching, but remember, Jared doesn't know yet that his boys are going to the McCarren ranch. He probably thinks they're both here. What I want to do is go after him before he comes after me."

Charity gasped when he said it. Shocked, she said the only thing that she could. "No."

"Would you have me wait for him to come up with a plan? If I go after him now, he won't be ready for it. I'll take any help I can get, but I have to stop him before he hurts anyone else."

Getting up silently, Charity went upstairs to the room that she and Adam were sharing while they stayed at his father's house. It was another fifteen minutes before he joined her there. She was very quiet and said nothing more about it until they were in bed. Carrie was asleep in the same room so they had to be quiet.

"I suppose you told your family your plans."

"Yes and no. I had some ideas. We talked and worked out some things. Hoss and Joe are coming with me."

"I guess I should have known you would do something like this, but Adam, every time you do something like this, I'm terrified that you will be killed. It's especially bad right now. For some reason, I just can't get this idea out of my head."

"You had a very difficult time with Carrie. Those last few months were very hard on you and the delivery was even harder. You were afraid that you wouldn't be here to take care of your family. Is it possible that the fear has grown and you're worried about me too. We live out here where so many things are dangerous, but it's a good life. We can't ruin it by using our energy concentrating on the worst possible outcomes. How about thinking about how this could all turn out well? Think about what a relief it will be not to have to worry about Jared ever again."

"That is a good thought. Keep that one in mind. Use it to banish all those dark thoughts. I'll be as careful as I can be, and I'll have others to help me. We'll go to Roy first to find out what we can. By now, he has sent the word out on Jared or Cyrus. It won't be long. You can count on that."

Sadly, a farm couple wouldn't be counting on anything any more. Cyrus had not found any lone traveler or even a pair of travelers to waylay to get money so when he had seen a prosperous looking farm, he had headed that way hoping to get at least a few dollars. He had but had killed both the husband and the wife in the process. Pocketing the twenty-one dollars and forty cents he found, he headed to Carson City. It wasn't much money, but he had found a gold watch and a few other things he guessed that he could sell for some additional cash. It would get him a room in a cheap hotel, some whisky, and perhaps a card game to turn that money into a larger amount. He hoped to get more money to prepare to head back for revenge before word arrived and circulated that he was a wanted man. The new clothing he was wearing that he had taken from the farmer, as well as the new haircut would give him a chance at passing unnoticed for a day or two which was all he thought he needed. He found the card game and the whisky bottle almost immediately and at the same establishment. He won some and he lost some ending up about even by the end of the night. He headed out to get a room hoping to do better the next day.

Waking late the next afternoon, Cyrus headed back to the same saloon. He got into another card game. Men came and went. His luck was about the same as the night before as he won some and lost some until about ten that night. Two men joined the game and seemed to have the worst luck of any men with whom he had ever played cards. They had to fold on several big pots. He kept going until he had a lot of money, a girl on his lap, and a full bottle of whisky in front of him. The lady asked if he wanted to go to her room up the stairs. He couldn't see why not so told her to lead the way. In her room, she poured him a generous drink, helped him undress and slip into her bed, and then began to disrobe. He couldn't wait for the rest, but then he must have fallen asleep. That was the last thing he remembered. He awoke slowly, groggy, and with a head that felt like hammers were being pounded inside it. He wasn't in the soft sheets of her bed any more either. There was a rough blanket, and when his eyes focused, a solid brick wall was all that he saw. He heard voices too. He pushed himself up and turned to see what the heck was going on. Staring at him through the cell bars was Mabel.

"Yes, Sheriff, that's him. That's Cyrus Reed. You got him. That's the man I saw going into the saloon the other night when I was going to my hotel."

A previous Cyrus Reed victim, Mabel, had arrived in Carson City, set out to look for work, but finding none, had returned to the hotel only to see Cyrus ride into town and head to a seedy saloon. She had reversed course, headed to the sheriff's office, and told them who was in their town and what he had done. Word had been sent immediately to Virginia City and was waiting there for the Cartwrights when they arrived in Roy's office. Not willing to see any innocent people hurt, Adam had suggested a way of getting Cyrus by playing to those things he liked: money and alcohol. Plied with plenty of both, it wasn't difficult to drug him and then haul him off to the jail. Two deputies went in to play cards and lose money, and a cooperative saloon girl was paid by the Cartwrights to do the rest. After Mabel identified Cyrus for the sheriff, Adam thanked her for her help and reminded the sheriff that there were sizeable rewards for him. The sheriff assured him that Mabel would be getting all of them if she stayed in town to testify and collect the money as it arrived. The final thing he asked was if there was anything more that was needed.

"No, I think we have everything we need right here. We got word this morning that a couple was killed by him. Their boy finally made it to town. He saw it happen. Couldn't do a thing about it, but he walked all the way here following this man to tell us what happened. If a jury doesn't find him guilty of murder and sentence him to death, do you want us to send him to California to be tried for murder or Virginia City for rustling and such?"

"If need be, California ought to have a chance at him, but I trust the people here to do the right thing. We'll be going now."

"So do I, but I want to be sure we got all our eggs in a row on this one. There's no way that murdering piece of trash ought to ever be a danger to anyone ever again. He ain't leaving that cell except to go to the courthouse and then to the gallows. He's got a bucket in there for what he needs to do. Man like him can live with the smell. After what he done to folks, I don't rightly care what he says about it."

Satisfied with the response and knowing the good reputation of the sheriff's office in Carson City, Adam turned to Hoss and Joe who were grinning as they stared at Cyrus in the cell. Hoss stood even taller as he looked down at Cyrus who was trying to clear his groggy head and understand what had happened to him.

"Adam, this has got to be the best one we ever pulled off. I can't wait to tell everybody how we done it. They just ain't gonna believe it."

"This is going to help a lot at home. Charity needs to know that I don't take any chances that I don't need to take."

The sheriff added his approval too to a scheme that meant that no one had to risk being shot and killed nor had the city had to spend any of its money to carry out the plan. He thanked them again before they left. The three walked out of the jail then and untied their horses from the hitching posts in front of the building with hardly a pause in the conversation.

"I know. I seen the look ya got when we left yesterday. She was already kinda all teary eyed after James was over at the McCarrens. That went pretty good too."

Joe had to add a comment then. "Todd handled that better than I thought he would. He told James that you would be around because you were a great friend and he often needed your help and advice too and he hoped you would be by more often. James really lit up when he said that. He gets to have all of you. I saw Charity wiping away a tear with all of that going on."

"But she didn't like Adam, or even us, going after Jared or Cyrus or whatever name he really is. Don't matter much. I figure he's got about a week or so left." Hoss frowned then. "Say, what you gonna tell the boys about all this?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll have to talk to Todd and Virginia and let them decide. It's their call now."

"Yeah, I s'pose it is. Well, we'll see 'em at Joe's wedding and that's on Saturday. We'll see how things are going then. He's gonna have to do some talking to Diane too about all this."

"Yeah, older brother, you definitely complicated things. Diane had some doubts about living here and was coming around to thinking it wasn't so bad at all until this mess."

"Hey, I had nothing to do with bringing Jared here, and it was you two who said I should get more involved and have James over to play with Alex."

The chuckles from Hoss and Joe stopped Adam. They had played him well getting him all steamed up and spouting by saying just the right things.

"See, Hoss, I can still do it just like when I was a kid. I can still get under his skin with a sentence or two. He's a lot touchier than he wants people to think."

"You two are quite a pair." Shaking his head in mock disgust, Adam mounted up on Sport as they got on their horses. He paused before turning his horse in the direction of home. "And I couldn't pick a better pair of brothers anywhere in the world. If you tell anybody I said that, I'll deny it though." With that, he did wheel Sport around and headed toward home. Grinning in pleasure, Hoss and Joe hurried to follow and matched him with one riding on either side of him as they left town.

Chapter 11

There had been great relief on the Ponderosa when the telegram arrived telling everyone that Jared/Cyrus had been apprehended and no one had been hurt. Everyone wanted to hear the story of that capture, but were all relieved that no one had been injured. They were even more pleased to find that the brothers had managed to find a way to use the man's vices against him. By the time they had arrived in Carson City, the sheriff had been all set to take Cyrus by force. Adam had said that he thought there were going to be people hurt or even killed if they tried to take him in that crowded saloon. The sheriff had agreed and asked if they had any other ideas. Adam did as did Joe. They discussed several ideas and then worked them into a scheme. The sheriff supplied the two men to gamble and lose. It wasn't their money so they weren't worried and they got free drinks and a salary while they were doing it. The saloon girl was also paid well for her services in giving drugged drinks to Cyrus when he had had quite a lot to drink so he wouldn't notice especially amid the euphoria of winning pot after pot playing poker. She was amazed that the man actually made it up the stairs to her room and got undressed, but that last drink had done the trick. She guessed he was going to have a nasty headache but she didn't mind. She had called him a pig, but then Adam had paid her a hefty sum from the money in the man's pockets before they dressed him and hauled him off to the jail. In the morning, Mabel was summoned to give her statement that the man they had known as Jared Butler was in fact Cyrus Reed. There was also the identification of him by the boy whose parents had been killed by him. Adam left the rest of the money for the sheriff to give to the boy who was going to have to manage the farm on his own at only sixteen years old. The sheriff had guessed that he would probably sell it and sign on to work for someone else. Adam told the young man to head for the Ponderosa if things didn't work out for him, and that they would find work for him. The boy was numb with shock over what had happened and didn't respond, but the sheriff had said he would remember the promise for the boy's sake and if necessary send him their way.

When the three brothers made their way home, they were greeted by Ben who then told Adam not to dismount. "Charity went back to your house when we got word that everything was settled. I think you have a few bridges to mend there. She wanted the children in their own beds tonight." All of the men there had a good idea why she wanted that. She wanted time to talk with Adam privately. He nodded and turned to head home. Ben waited until he was out of range of hearing, and then smiled and enthusiastically greeted his younger sons. "Pru and Diane are both inside. They've been working on wedding preparations. Everything looks all set for Saturday. Those two ladies are as happy as can be although Pru is a bit uncomfortable, Hoss. I'm wondering if she isn't getting close."

"Oh, Pa, we got almost a month and a half or so to go yet. Joe and Diane set the wedding date early enough so that we could be here for the wedding. They didn't want it to be like our wedding with Charity giving birth practically in the middle of it."

"I certainly hope you're right then." Except that Ben was thinking the opposite was possibly true even as he hoped that what he had said was in fact true. For the time being, he dismissed that thought and asked about what had happened in Carson City. He expected to get quite a story, and with Little Joe doing the telling, that is exactly what he got.

At Adam's house, the telling was much more low-key. Later with the children in bed, Adam and Charity had a chance to talk. "I was afraid again all the while you were gone. It is so hard to sit and wait not knowing if you're going to come back alive or not. Adam, I don't want to have to go through that again."

"What are you saying? You're not saying that you don't want to be married to me, are you?" The terrible old insecurities hadn't been banished apparently but only buried to be resurrected so easily.

Quickly moving to Adam, Charity gently held his face between her hands. "No, no, what I meant was that something has to change. You have a son and a daughter as well as a wife who love you very much and need you very much. Yet you risk your life. Why did it have to be you to chase after him? You already said that the sheriff in Carson City was about to arrest him when you arrived."

"People would have been hurt and perhaps some would have died if the sheriff had gone about it his way. By doing it our way, he was taken without a shot being fired. What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing at all, but is that what you had in mind when you left here?" Adam couldn't meet her eyes. "Of course not. You planned to use your gun against his gun, and you assumed you would be better than he was. That's been a good strategy for you in the past, but Adam, you can be right on that a thousand times. You only have to be wrong once for it to be the wrong thing to do."

"I would have only done what had to be done. Because we could find another way, we did. That's how it is. Charity, he was a danger to us. He was going to come after us because we rescued James from him and because we stopped him from stealing cattle. A man like that doesn't like to be crossed. Now what is this really about? You have been so emotional lately."

"I think it's because I see James and he has so little family left, and I have so little family left, and I can't bear to think of losing the one person who holds me to this family."

"Sweetheart, you are part of this family, no matter what. I plan to be with you a very long time, but even if I'm not, you're a Cartwright now, and you'll forever be a part of this family. James is part of our family now too although a bit more distant, but he's our nephew now as is Marvin."

Trying to get back on a more level emotional keel, Charity abruptly switched subjects. Adam was a master of such tactics and smiled indulgently as she did so. "Speaking of Marvin, he acted as if being reunited with his brother wasn't all that important to him."

"Speaking from experience, being a fourteen-year-old boy or almost there, you don't want to appear emotional in front of a bunch of adults. He tousled the boy's hair and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. At his age, it was the equivalent of an emotional outburst. I'm sure when he and James have some privacy, he'll be better able to express his feelings."

"Or maybe not. Perhaps he'll be like another older brother I happen to know who holds a lot of that in dispensing them like pearls when he finds the occasion suitable."

"Or he could do that. By the smile James had, I think he knew. He was very reserved too. I wonder how things went after we left. I guess I expected more of a reaction, but it was all so very calm. Everyone was so polite. James thanked us and said hello to Todd and Virginia as if he was spending the week like he was on vacation."

"It was one of those situations that no one has ever experienced before. It wasn't one where we could tell each other how we were expected to act."

"True. All we said to James was that he should be sure to be respectful to Todd and Virginia and follow the rules they set for their house. I should probably go over there tomorrow to see how things are going. I did tell James I would be around. I don't want him to think I lied and abandoned him." Wrapping an arm around Charity, Adam gently turned her face up to his. "Now are we better on this other thing?"

"Yes, I guess I had to get it out of my system. It's so frustrating to be the one sitting behind and waiting and fearing the worst all the time. I guess I need to find a way to keep my mind on other things when you're not here."

"Maybe you're ready to start doing some of the work for the mill again. The paperwork is stacking up, and I could use the help. Let's start working together again. I'd like that. I've got an order for some plans to draw too. I could use some help with ideas for the kitchen for those too. Would you like to see what I've got done so far?"

Soon, Adam and Charity were busy in his office working as they had before her pregnancy had called a halt to it. It had been nearly six months, and later that night both of them realized after making sweet love with each other that they needed that time together. In the morning, after breakfast, Adam took Alex to the stable and they worked together for quite a while on some small projects until it was time for lunch. Then Adam announced that he really did need to ride over to the main house because he was probably missed with all the work that needed to be done on the ranch especially with Joe's wedding coming up and the rustled stock that had to be returned to its rightful owners as well as the branding that wasn't quite done yet. Charity and the children bid him a cheerful goodbye, and he headed to the main house where he was greeted by Hoss.

"Hey, older brother, sleeping in this mornin' again. We shur coulda used your help this mornin' getting all that stock moved from here that old Jared or Cyrus or whosis stole. We got most of 'em sorted out now, I think."

"Had some sorting out to do at home too."

"Yeah, Pa said something like that, and Pru said she was kinda brooding while you was gone. Things better now?"

"Yes, you know the steam kettle never explodes as long as it can vent."

"Yeah, and you got a powerful feisty one there. I bet she can really explode too." Adam rolled his eyes and Hoss laughed.

Ben came outside then. "Are you two planning to have lunch with us or spend the time talking out here? Hop Sing is getting rather upset with us and we're not the ones delaying lunch."

Chastised, Hoss and Adam hurried inside to find the table crowded already, but it often was these days. Pru was there with the girls and Hunter. Joe and Diane sat on one end. Candy had found a spot but room was made for Hoss and Adam so that Hop Sing could bring out platters of food. A few low-key questions were asked of Adam which he answered telling them that things were going very well at his house. Because he didn't use the word 'fine', they knew that the brewing storm had blown over. It wasn't clear enough to Hunter though so he had to ask a question based on a few things he had heard his parents discussing at home.

"Uncle Adam, so did Aunt Charity tan your behind for running off to chase after that no-good jasper Jared?"

There was a lot of choking, snorting, and strangled swallowing that followed that question that was too late to stop and sounded almost exactly like something Hoss would have said anyway. It sounded so funny coming from an almost five-year-old that Ben was biting his lip as he looked up from his plate to Adam wondering what he would say. Adam had his eyebrows raised and was looking at Hoss even as he turned to Hunter.

"She wanted to do that, Hunter, but she couldn't catch me. By the time she got done chasing me, she was too tired to do it, so we kissed and made up instead."

"Ewww, why'd you have ta say that. I gotta eat here."

There was more laughter then, and the rest of the meal passed in typical fashion for a Cartwright lunch. At the end of the meal, Ben asked Adam if he had been over to the McCarren ranch to see how James was doing.

"If things aren't too busy here, I was hoping to do that this afternoon. Tomorrow, I'll be available to work on anything you need done. I think I have everything else squared away now."

"We're making good progress. If you come over here tomorrow for breakfast, we'll talk over what needs to be done before the wedding. I think that Joe has a request though."

"Yeah, Diane was going to stay at Hoss' house until the wedding, but Pru isn't feeling the best. We wondered if it would be all right if Diane stayed at your house instead. If Charity could help her get dressed on the day of the wedding and if you would drive her here, then we would be all set for the day. I've got the carriage all set. I could have it at your place the night before when I bring her home after dinner."

Joe was so hopeful in his expression that Adam had to smile. "I'm sure it's fine. Let me ride home to make sure that Charity has time to get a room ready and organize things. I'll be back later after I go over to see James, and I can bring all of Diane's things to our house and get her settled in.

"Oh, you can bring her things. I'll bring Diane by later."

That brought forth a few chuckles before the group dispersed to their afternoon tasks. As Adam rode to the McCarren ranch, he had some time to think about what he was going to say to James. He hoped that the boy wasn't too distraught at what had happened. When he arrived there though, he was amazed. James was apparently in a great mood and both Todd and Virginia remarked on how well behaved he was. He and Marvin had been given the option of having their own bedrooms but had opted to share one instead. Todd was beaming like a proud father and Virginia looked affectionately at him knowing how he felt having sons. She felt better too having more children in the house. It seemed more alive to have all those voices and all those activities going on around her. James came to her frequently with questions, and she loved being able to sit with him and talk to him about those things. Adam and Todd spent a little time talking privately about Cyrus and what was likely to happen to him.

"Have you told the boys the whole story?"

"I told Marvin. I thought he had a right to know. We talked for quite a while last night. He doesn't want to see him. I said I would take him over there if he wanted to see him to say goodbye or anything else he wanted to say. He said he would rather not. I left the invitation there though. He knows he probably will hang soon, but I think he thinks it's justified. He had a suspicion that his mother's so-called illness was caused by his father. I don't think he can forgive him that. I said that someday, we'll head on over there to find her grave and make sure it's a proper grave. He thanked me for that."

"So they did find her body?"

"Yes, I got more information from Roy. He did throw her body in the river but it tangled in brush and was found soon after. She was identified and the posters went out on him after the doctor said she had been beaten to death. You know, she must have been a decent woman. How she got mixed up with him, we'll never know, but she taught these boys as much good as she could. They got a good start because of her."

"Well, I'll be seeing all of you at the wedding on Saturday then. Anything you need, you be sure to let me know. I want my nephews to know that I'll be there for them if they need something."

After that and saying goodbye to the boys, Adam returned home. He and Charity welcomed Diane into their home. It was to make things more convenient for the wedding while maintaining decorum and her reputation. She was a very proper southern lady when it came to such matters, but she was also much warmer and quite funny. That was something that Adam discovered in the few days she was at the house. Charity already knew that of course, but he had never seen her in those more private moments having usually only seen her in larger family groupings. He was very pleased especially to see how well she got on with Alex and how she loved to snuggle with Carrie. On Saturday morning, as they prepared to drive to the main house, Adam paused briefly to express himself.

"Diane, I'm going to miss you. You've been a big help here the last couple of days. You haven't been a houseguest as much as a great help to us. Thank you. If there is ever anything that we can do to help, please know that all you have to do is let us know."

"Thank you, Adam, but all we need to do now is to get met to the wedding on time."

"I can do that."

Chapter 12

Soon, the hectic early morning preparations for the big event were underway with Adam and Hoss helping a nervous Joe and reassuring him that all was going according to plans while Charity helped Diane with her hair. Virginia arrived and the two sisters closeted themselves in the downstairs guestroom with the bride while Ben waited upstairs with nervous groom and Hoss. Adam came downstairs to watch over the children. Todd agreed to help with that. Luckily Carrie decided that it was a good time to take a long nap. Marvin was there looking very handsome in a new suit and James had a new white shirt, black string tie, and black trousers that were a bit too long for him, and shiny new black boots. Adam smiled a bit looking at him dressed in almost identical fashion to the clothing he had worn that day except that he had on a black suit coat as well.

"James, you look very handsome."

"Todd made me wear it."

"You didn't want to wear it."

"Well, yeah I did."

"Then that's what you should have said. Are you calling him Todd. I would think that if you can't call him father or Pa that Mister McCarren would be more respectful especially when you're talking to other people about the man who has taken you in and wants to be your father."

"He tanned me!"

"He what?" Surprised, but then taking a moment to think, Adam had to calm himself and ask a few questions. "A real tanning or a spanking, and what did you do to deserve that?"

"Well, I guess it was a spanking, but it still stung some. All I said was that Virg.., ah, well, ah, well, that Missus McCarren didn't have the right to tell me what to do all the time. I told her too and then I told him. He don't and she don't. They ain't my parents."

"I wasn't your parent either. Did I have the right to tell you what to do?" James looked a bit chagrined at that. "If you had talked to me that way or especially if you had talked to Charity that way, do you have any idea what I would have done?"

"Would you have tanned me?"

"I would have wanted to, but I would have controlled my temper like Todd did and given you what you deserved like he did. Did you say you were sorry afterwards?"

"No, I told him he didn't have the right to do that either!" Suddenly James realized what he had admitted and also realized he had been in the wrong again. He wondered but then knew what Adam would have done if he had said that to him. "Oh, you woulda done that to me again, wouldn't you?"

"Quite possibly. Todd was being very forgiving of you. He was far more gentle with you than I would have been. He must love you very much already."

"Yeah, he told me that after he spanked me for being having a sassy mouth, but then he bought me all these new clothes to wear. I mean, not just the ones I'm wearing, but a bunch of other ones too. I got me a new nightshirt and everything. He got stuff for Marvin too. We went on over to the old house, and we got all the stuff that was Mama's. He said it belongs to us now. We got it all in our room, but he said we could put it anywhere in the house we want to cause it's our home now." Almost out of breath from all of that, James noted that Adam was starting to smile.

"Sounds as if you like it there."

"I guess I do."

"Did you tell Todd and Virginia that?"

"I guess I should."

"Now would be a good time."

"I guess I could."

"I would be proud of you if you would."

"You would? I'll go do it then. Could I maybe sit with you and Alex during the wedding for a while?"

"If you ask your parents and they say yes."

"All right. I'll ask 'em. They might want me to sit with them though. You wouldn't mind if I did, would ya?"

"Not at all. Fathers do like to sit with their sons on important occasions. You know where to find me when you need me."

"I sure do, Uncle Adam. Thanks."

A short time later, Marvin walked up to Adam and cleared his throat to get the older man's attention. Having seen him coming, Adam was ready though. "Can I help you with something?"

"I think you already did quite a bit for me. Todd told me that it was all your idea, you know, me and James living with him. He told me how you talked to him about it."

"He did think it was a great idea."

"I know. He told me how excited he got, and how that was the day he got down off his horse and made that offer to me before he had even asked Virginia about it. I guess I should start calling him Pa. It's just that the word kinda sticks in my throat cause for so long, well, you know, it brings up bad feelings."

"Have you talked to Todd about that?"

"I don't know what to say. I mean what can you say instead of pa. There ain't exactly other words for it."

"Well, there are. Father is a bit formal, but there is papa. That would work for James certainly. There's pappy. I have had friends who referred to their father as their pappy. One called his father pap. Some call their father pop or poppy. You could call him sir when you're around the other hands. They would respect that, and then you could use one of the other ones when it was just the two of you."

"And you're my Uncle Adam now, huh?" Adam smiled. "I like that. I ain't ever had so much family before. James and I was talking. We been talking a lot. It's good to be able to talk and not worry about anybody getting mad about what you're saying. Anyway, we like having family, and we only ever had each other and our ma who cared about us. It feels good to know that there are other people who give a darn. So I wanted to say thank you, and for you to know that I may have made mistakes in the past and I may make some again, but I'll always be trying to do the right thing cause of you deciding to step in and speak up for us. So that's all I had to say." Slightly embarrassed and not sure how to end such a conversation, Marvin bit his lip as he waited for Adam to say something.

"We know that James had his name changed at least once. What about you? Were you always Marvin?"

"You know I don't rightly know what my name was to begin with. My last name before was Eugene and I didn't like that one. Mama called me Marty sometimes cause I think my name before that was Marty, but I've had so many, I don't rightly know which one is mine. I kinda like Marvin and it's the one James knows the best so I decided to keep it."

"Sounds like sound reasoning to me. All right, Marvin. The wedding is about to begin. Why don't we get all of these people seated so the minister can get this started."

Marvin helped Adam usher the last of the guests to chairs and benches before seating himself by Todd who suddenly sported a big grin. Marvin leaned down to whisper to James who nodded and a short time later, Todd had another reason to smile. After the ceremony, he told Virginia that Marvin had called him pappy and James called him papa. She smiled too but tears came as well. James asked why she was crying, and Todd told him she was so happy. James frowned, but Todd said women were like that and to look around at all the women who had tears in their eyes because Joe Cartwright had married Diane. He looked around and saw that they did. Then he looked for Adam and couldn't find him. He couldn't find Charity either. He found Alex and asked him where his father and mother had gone.

"I don't know for sure but Papa took Aunt Pru by the arm and helped her walk out. I saw Doctor Martin go with them. They didn't come back yet. I think Aunt Pru is sick."

About that time, Adam returned and moved quickly to Hoss' side as he was shaking hands with guests who were filing out of the room. He stood next to Ben who stood beside Charity, and Joe and Diane in a short receiving line.

"Where you been, Adam? Get a call of nature right in the middle of things?"

Adam spoke very softly but urgently to Hoss. "No, but your wife did. Hoss, you need to go to your house. Paul is over there, and he would like Charity and perhaps Virginia to come help too. He thinks the babies are on their way."

What was supposed to be a quiet private conversation stopped every other conversation in the room though when Hoss responded in shock to what Adam had said and did it very loudly. "On their way? Babies? Are on their way? Wait a minute, you said babies?"

Any chance of keeping any of it a secret was lost at that point so Adam answered in a normal voice. "That's what the doctor said. He said babies. She's doing fine but he said the babies seem to be in a hurry unlike mine who seemed to like to take their time. If you want to be in the house to hear the first one, you need to hurry. I'll let your children know what is happening."

Hoss rushed from the house as Charity went to find an apron quickly to cover her good dress and then rushed to follow him. Ben helped Adam round up the children and then once they were all seated on the stairs, Adam proceeded to tell them what was happening. Their big concern was if they were going to miss the wedding party. Assured that they could stay at the party, they were fine. Ben shrugged when Adam looked to him for advice.

"Let them enjoy the party. It's probably the best thing."

By the time the sun had set, Adam was sitting on the bench outside the house watching Todd drive out of the yard with Virginia and his daughter and two new sons. Joe and Diane had left hours earlier to spend the night in town after they had stopped at Hoss' house to see the twins. Hoss was prouder than could be and said his face was sore from smiling. He had two more sons for a total of five children and couldn't be happier. The twins were small, but Doctor Martin said they were healthy. They needed to be kept warm and fed often. Other than that, he had no special instructions for them. Ben walked around the corner of the house returning from seeing the two newest grandchildren.

"I thought you might be gone already."

"Charity is inside nursing Carrie, and Alex is asleep on the settee."

"Why don't you stay here tonight. It's late, and everyone is tired. There's plenty of room, and it would be nice for me to have someone at the table for breakfast."

"That would be nice. I'll see if Charity wants to do that. I'm guessing she will. She's probably more tired than I am, and I'm exhausted. It's been a great day though."

"Yes, it has been a wonderful day."

"So Joe and Diane are going to stay here in the house with you?"

"Yes, I'm moving into the downstairs bedroom. No more stairs for me, and it's warmer down here in winter and cooler in the summer. They're going to take my bedroom, and turn Joe's room into a sewing room and a sitting room for the two of them to have some private space. The other rooms will be guest rooms until they have children."

"They're planning on children then?"

"Joe says he has to have at least six now that Hoss has five."

"Will he ever get over competing with us?" Ben's look was the only answer Adam got on that one. "Yes, I do know better. Things certainly have changed a lot in the last few months. A lot of good has happened. I know that James and Marvin will have more adjusting to do and so will Todd and Virginia now that they've been introduced to the world of raising boys. Maybe you could help Todd out with some advice although I've been impressed so far with how well he's been doing."

"Yes, he had a great teacher too in his father. He will do well if he remembers how he was raised. I was thinking that we might bid on that ranch over there that Jared or Cyrus had when it comes up for auction. It isn't much, but it does have a nice house and stable. It would make a nice place for a small operation for us. We could have some of our stock over there and a few hands to care for them. Then someday perhaps sell the place to a young man ready to take on a challenge of having his own place."

"Someone like Marvin perhaps?"

"Possibly, but there are other young men we've helped get started. That's not a place that will ever be a big ranch, but if someone wanted a modest spread to raise a family, it would do."

"If the price is right, we should do it then."

"Yes, you never know when someone will show up here and need our help. Now let's go inside and see if Charity wants to stay and needs any help getting those youngsters up to bed."

"You're pretty sure she'll want to stay."

"Of course. I asked her earlier and she said yes if you were agreeable to the idea." Ben chuckled then and wrapped an arm around his son's shoulders as they walked into the house.


End file.
